filesystems

[sajadfedorafrum]

in the name of god
hello
i am a user of fedora for 1 year and up till now i dont know anything about its filesystem i found here to write this if it is false please help me to go to which thread?
now i have this partitions:
[root@sajad ~]# partedt
Model: ATA ST9250315AS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 250GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 32.3kB 210MB 210MB primary ext3 boot
2 210MB 250GB 250GB primary lvm

and i want to create a new partition with size 50G for myself to write in it instead of writing in the home.
but i neither know about filesystems in linux as lvm or ext3 nor how i can create new partition without damages to data.
please help me though i know this is long!!!
valhamdolelah.

[jpollard]

I don't think there is a way, especially not after the filesystem has been used.

Most of the resizing facilities are designed to expand a filesystem, rather than
shrink it. All recommendations are to backup the partition first, then tinker with
it. If you are going to backup the partition, then you may as well delete it afterwards
and create two partitions in its' place.

In your case - there is no free space left to create a partition, and to shrink what
you have amounts to a backup, re-install, and reload your data...

[sajadfedorafrum]

in the name of god
thanks
but what about the filesystems i dont know anythink about them.can you help me please?
valhamdolelah.

[jpollard]

Unless you have some free partition you can't do much with any filesystem...

Except create a loopback mount of a relatively large disk file.

The loopback mount is one way to experiment with filesystems and not have to have
a disk.

To create a disk file:

dd if=/dev/zero of=<a_file_name> bs=1M count=2000

Will create a 2G file with nothing but nulls

mkfs -t<type> <a_file_name>

will create a filesystem in that file - where <type> is the type of filesystem.

To mount it:

mount <a_file_name> /<where_to_mount> -t <type> -o loop=/dev/loop<n>

(The <n> is the loop device number - /dev/loop0, /dev/loop1, ...)
Now you have a mount of a filesystem and can do anything to it you want- including
copying it somewhere else.

BTW, the mount is also a way to look at ISO images without actually burning them
to a CD/DVD.

If you have a recent/current CPU with virtualization capability, you can install the virtualization tools
that can make some of this more natural, as well as create virtual systems and play with/test
entire systems - installation, backup, using, networking...

[stevea]

Hold on there. There is a solution.
gparted can shrink file systems, no problem, and so can system-config-lvm. The problem is that sajad... has his root file system on the LVM and you cannot resize (not smaller anyway) a mounted file system.

He may be able to do this by booting the Fedora live DVD and running system-config-lvm if it is there.
A live CD with a current gparted should work also.

[SlowJet]

On the other had, the only way to write stuff for yourself IS to write into a f/s dir owned by yourself.
So even with seperate partitions you have only complicated your f/s for no real gain.

But making a separate /home LV and a /bkup LV with some VG freespace of 4 GB will allow future re-installs or upgrades and a place to save data, settings, and a means to use lvm snapshots with tar to backup live.

And re-installing and using the custom partitioning choice would be easier and you would learn about f/s's very quickly.

SJ

P. S. I recommend SystemResuceCD 1.3.1 because it has current LVM tools see www.distrowatch.com

[sajadfedorafrum]

thanks
but how i can create a /home LV now ?
thanks.
valhamdolelah.