Is it safe to resize system on this situation? [Solved]

[MXRobo]

I think that the memory (and maybe to a lesser extent, swap) in posts+ #4 with "free -h" is basically irrelevant as the memory is not ssd space - "lsblk -f" may suit you better.

And often you don't really have to be too concerned with GiB vs GB, but pay attention to the percentage used – try to stay under 80%.

Somewhat as others have said: If it were me, and since you're considering deleting Mint and reinstalling everything, and this is unorthodox advice, but if the data in "/dev/sda2" isn't too important, just use Gparted to shrink it – to maybe 30 or 25 GiB (or GB), then use the remaining approximately 80 GiB to install MX.

Pay attention to space particularly before, and after the partition you're focused on.

Always backup, unless you don't care too much! Gparted is rock solid.

Rots of Ruck!

[CharlesV]

@keos and if your thinking of just deleting and replacing... might be a good exercise for you to shrink the partition and see how it all works etc, before you delete and start over.

[keos]

@CharlesV

It is a good idea, i will do it, but now i'm having problem with systemback in Mint, not able no copy the system -- i'll be back after i ...

[keos]

Well, yes, I was able to resize the partition, I did several reboots and shutdowns and it was fine, but then when installing MX I didn't realize that I chosed the wrong partition to install MX and I did it on Mint ...

Now I'm trying to figure out how to copy Mint (from the other machine) with 'dd' to reinstall it here, on this machine, by using Gparted but I've tried several ways to do it but so far nothing works.

This USB has 60GB and everytime it gives the same output, "no space" ...

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root@kaos:~# dd if=/dev/nvme0n1p6 of=/dev/sda1 bs=4M status=progress
62901977088 bytes (63 GB, 59 GiB) copied, 5215 s, 12.1 MB/s
dd: error al escribir en '/dev/sda1': No queda espacio en el dispositivo
15000+0 records in
14999+0 records out
62913511424 bytes (63 GB, 59 GiB) copied, 5337.61 s, 11.8 MB/s
root@kaos:~#

[DukeComposed]

Now I'm trying to figure out how to copy Mint (from the other machine) with 'dd' to reinstall it here, on this machine, by using Gparted but I've tried several ways to do it but so far nothing works.

This USB has 60GB and everytime it gives the same output, "no space" ...

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root@kaos:~# dd if=/dev/nvme0n1p6 of=/dev/sda1 bs=4M status=progress
62901977088 bytes (63 GB, 59 GiB) copied, 5215 s, 12.1 MB/s
dd: error al escribir en '/dev/sda1': No queda espacio en el dispositivo
15000+0 records in
14999+0 records out
62913511424 bytes (63 GB, 59 GiB) copied, 5337.61 s, 11.8 MB/s
root@kaos:~#

If I have a 60 GB hard disk and I run "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda1 bs=4M", dd will write zeroes to /dev/sda1 in blocks of 4 million. There's just one problem. I didn't tell dd when to stop. So dd will keep writing data to the target device until it hits an error. The "out of space" error in this case means "I ran out of writable bytes on the destination before I ran out of readable bytes at the source."

More importantly though, I'm curious to know why you'd choose to use dd to copy blocks on a storage device when you could much more safely copy files between mountpoints. There's no chance your Linux Mint partition uses a file system you can't read normally.

[keos]

Sorry but don't understand, I'm not an expert, why you type 'zero', the partition where the system is, acording to Gparted: '/nvme0n1p6' what m i doing wrong?

[coderoot@kaos:~# lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda 8:0 1 58.6G 0 disk
└─sda1 8:1 1 58.6G 0 part
nvme0n1 259:0 0 238.5G 0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 1.4G 0 part /boot/efi
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2 0 1.4G 0 part [SWAP]
├─nvme0n1p3 259:3 0 39.6G 0 part
├─nvme0n1p4 259:4 0 45.5G 0 part
├─nvme0n1p5 259:5 0 48.5G 0 part /
└─nvme0n1p6 259:6 0 59.2G 0 part
root@kaos:~#][/code]

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kaos@kaos-Inspiron-3583:~$ LANG=C sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for kaos:    
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 238.47 GiB, 256060514304 bytes, 500118192 sectors
Disk model: PC SN520 NVMe WDC 256GB                 
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: D3C3AE91-35A3-4FC3-8778-09C16F235FCF

Device             Start       End   Sectors  Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1      2048   3002367   3000320  1.4G EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p2   3002368   5984255   2981888  1.4G Linux swap
/dev/nvme0n1p3   5984256  88997887  83013632 39.6G Linux root (x86)
/dev/nvme0n1p4  88997888 184377343  95379456 45.5G Linux filesystem
/dev/nvme0n1p5 184377344 286046207 101668864 48.5G Linux filesystem
/dev/nvme0n1p6 286046208 410208317 124162110 59.2G Linux filesystem


Disk /dev/sda: 58.59 GiB, 62914560000 bytes, 122880000 sectors
Disk model: ProductCode     
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: FED293A4-E9B5-4743-9669-4ED00CC71129

Device     Start       End   Sectors  Size Type
/dev/sda1   2048 122877951 122875904 58.6G Microsoft basic data
kaos@kaos-Inspiron-3583:~$

[DukeComposed]

Sorry but don't understand, I'm not an expert, why you type 'zero', the partition where the system is, acording to Gparted: '/nvme0n1p6' what m i doing wrong?

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kaos@kaos-Inspiron-3583:~$ LANG=C sudo fdisk -l
Device             Start       End   Sectors  Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p6 286046208 410208317 124162110 59.2G Linux filesystem

/dev/sda1   2048 122877951 122875904 58.6G Microsoft basic data

Let's make this as simple as we can. Let's subtract "End" from "Start". This is how big the partitions are, it's how the "Sectors" field is calculated:

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nvme0n1p6: 410208317 - 286046208 = 124162109
sda1:      122877951 -      2048 = 122875903

You know for a fact that one of these numbers is bigger than the other... right? That's why the "Size" fields are different by 0.6 GB.

[keos]

Sorry but i'm still without understand your point.

I took another USB, this time of 152GB:

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keos@kaos:~$ sudo -i
[sudo] contraseña para keos: 
root@kaos:~# dd if=/dev/nvme0n1p6 of=/dev/sda1 bs=4M status=progress
63560482816 bytes (64 GB, 59 GiB) copied, 2567 s, 24.8 MB/s
15156+1 records in
15156+1 records out
63571000320 bytes (64 GB, 59 GiB) copied, 2601.3 s, 24.4 MB/s
root@kaos:~#

*Gparted > copy/paste, from the USB (after reduce ...) to the partition ... the system is already reinstalled with all its configurations ...!

Any way, thanks to all of you ...

[MXRobo]

I started to type the following: "I don't know, I never tried to squeeze something that size into something just a smidgen larger, but the 59.2Gb may no t fit into the 60GB USB – maybe?"
but then I saw that Duke had replied before I posted.

Start End
59.2 GB – 58.6 GB = 0.6 GB, thanks for pointing this out Duke – learned something.
So the 60 GB USB wasn't large enough.