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Coming from a windows background I am fining myself overwhelmed by the massive amount of totally different resources available when it comes to learning Linux...

I have a fresh install of ubuntu server 12.04, with xRdp and VNC.

The install was put on an 80gb drive - the only drive in the machine.

I would like to create a partition on this drive, and say split it into 10gb (for ubuntu) and the remaining would be for storage of various files. - windows would give me c: and d: for example.

I seem to be struggling in finding a 'simple' step-by-step guide - the terminology between windows and linux is so very different so searching, using keywords I would usually use, yields all sorts of conflicting results.

I have installed gparted, though am now stuck..

Is there a step by step guide that will show me how to take my 80gb drive and split it into 2?

Thanks

Darren Wainwright
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  • Since you've installed Gparted, may I suggest searching for a Gparted Howto. – mikewhatever Mar 22 '14 at 19:37
  • I've been doing that.... found things like this http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gparted.html - though I don't get a resize option, which then leads to more searches. and when you're not sure on the terminology it makes it difficult – Darren Wainwright Mar 22 '14 at 19:52
  • ...then i try to unmount - and met with another message 'the partition could not be unmounted from the following location...' - which means another search, and finding MORE terminology to learn....all to just create a partition - hence me asking here for a simple step by step guide] – Darren Wainwright Mar 22 '14 at 19:55
  • Unfortunatly, there is no step by step Gparted guide that uses Windows terminology, or doesn't require minimal learning. Have some pacience. – mikewhatever Mar 22 '14 at 20:00
  • I'm not after 'windows' terminology - just explaining that,because of that, it makes finding information a pain in the butt. Perhaps someone else will be of help... thanks anyway. – Darren Wainwright Mar 22 '14 at 20:02
  • Go back to the site you linked and follow the guide to resize the 'ext4partition onsda. You can verify it is the correct partition if the mount point is listed as/`. I would not suggest shrinking the system partition down so small as 10GB as this leaves very little room for the system to grow as you add programs. ~40GB is would be a fair value. – douggro Mar 22 '14 at 20:24
  • Thank you @douggro - i'll try that now. I was following another guide to create a liveUSB with tuxboot - and, big shocker, ran into another issue that my usb isn't 'mounted' - i'm trying to enjoy the learning curve, though every single step comes with some problem or other :( - i'll try that guide now :) – Darren Wainwright Mar 22 '14 at 20:28
  • no dice - I must be having a stupid-day... My sda1 is mounted to / and has a boot flag - and i can do f all with it. I give up.... Can't create a liveusb because the usb isn't mounted - and can't get it to mount... and can't resize the partition on sda 1 because it is mounted - it's a cycle... – Darren Wainwright Mar 22 '14 at 20:37
  • No worries. The tutorial is based on either working on partitions that can be unmounted (which / can't when booted from) or from a separate boot disc. Given that you can't get a bootable USB drive to work, you'd have to create a boot CD, install gparted and run from there. Starting fresh and manually partitioning would be almost as easy. – douggro Mar 22 '14 at 22:08
  • I finally got the USB to mount automatically (from yet another command line i didn't understand :) ) - though since then I have re-installed and it's perfect now :) thanks for your help – Darren Wainwright Mar 22 '14 at 22:21

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You don't even need Gparted to do this though if you want to, use Gparted to format the entire 80GB to ext4.

During Ubuntu Server installation you are going to get the options for how to partition your hard drive. Select Manual Partitioning

Then do the following

/ - 10 GB (mark as bootable)

swap - 4GB (or 8GB)

/home - 66GB

Ubuntu server will be installed in / as well as the grubloader.

Quick read on swap

/home is the partition for all the media and stuff.

EDIT: @dougaroo has noted that this solution does not work for an existing installation. OP has noted that he has looked at a few tutorials. Here is one tutorial. After looking around, I found that it seems to be way easier to redo the installation if you want to create a separate /home partition. In the case that you cannot reinstall, the phrase you want to be googling for is

separate /home partition after ubuntu installation

Mr.Lee
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  • OP has already done the install - your answer would only work for a fresh installation. Resizing the existing ext4 partition with gparted is more applicable. – douggro Mar 22 '14 at 20:07
  • Mr.Lee - man I wish I knew that before I installed :) - currently following 3 different tutorials (which combined, i hope create 1 workable option) – Darren Wainwright Mar 22 '14 at 20:09
  • What is a 'swap'? out of interest... – Darren Wainwright Mar 22 '14 at 20:10
  • @Darren swap is virtual memory space, used to cache RAM to disk when there is not enough physical RAM to store all open files or instructions. swap should generally be twice the size of the amount of RAM installed. – douggro Mar 22 '14 at 20:14
  • I had the word swap hyper linked in case you were wondering. Also, in the case that there you can redo the installation, I would suggest this way. Otherwise, @douggro is correct in that this will not work for an existing installation. – Mr.Lee Mar 22 '14 at 20:45
  • Thank you @Mr.Lee - I'm just going to re-install. Marked you as answer because of all the other good info in the post. Also big thanks to doug too - greatly appreciated. – Darren Wainwright Mar 22 '14 at 20:59