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Let's consider an Ubuntu 15.04 installation which takes the whole HD space:

enter image description here

Is it possible to shrink either /dev/sda2 or /dev/sda5 in order to get free space (with a view to install a more recent Ubuntu version and make it bootable)?

I tried with Ubuntu Disks utility and Gparted to no avail.

David
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1 Answers1

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Because you chose to install Ubuntu using the LVM disk structure method, you can't use gparted to make modifications to your disk. Install system-config-lvm and use this GUI tool to review/change your disk volumes.

Always backup your data first!

In terminal...

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install system-config-lvm

Start it from the Unity dash by typing lvm into the search box.

See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lvm for basic help. You can also search https://help.ubuntu.com for "system-config-lvm" and find a lot more detailed help.

Community
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heynnema
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  • Sadly, it looks like that the package is not available with Ubuntu 16.04: E: Unable to locate package system-config-lvm – David Sep 16 '17 at 09:27
  • sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) universe" was missing. – David Sep 16 '17 at 09:35
  • @David you probably just needed to enable this repo in Software & Updates – heynnema Sep 16 '17 at 14:00
  • Shrinking went all well (thank you BTW) but not the install since it only remains the fresh Ubuntu install and some free space. I must have made a mistake after choosing partition and mount point. I would appreciate if you (or someone else) could bring me some advice on how to proceed correctly. – David Sep 16 '17 at 17:48
  • @David please explain in more detail. It sounds like you successfully modified your logical volumes using the GUI tool, correct? How many logical partitions did you have? How much free space did you create? Was your Ubuntu install a fresh install? What else were you trying to install? – heynnema Sep 16 '17 at 19:53