I have some unallocated space that I would like to allocate to my root partition. Is it possible? I opened disks and the option for resizing the root partition is greyed out.
You canât easily resize it when it is mounted.
If you boot off a live ISO, you should be able to. However, without knowing more about what filesystems you are using it is hard to say for sure.
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IIF you are using fedora 34 with btrfs then resizing should not be necessary.
IIF you are using LVM with ext4 then enlarging it while online is doable. Shrinking, OTOH must be done when the OS is not running.
IIF using another filesystem type it may or may not be possible.
IIF using a fixed partition size then how you resize is dependent upon disk partition arrangements, where the free space is, and what your goal is.
We need a lot more info before we can give you informed guidance.
Output of âsudo fdisk -lâ, âdfâ, and âlsblkâ, combined with a description of your goal would be a good start.
The answer to your query will vary depending on many factors like others have suggested.
Here is a trivial response. A simple scenario where this would be possible is when the unallocated space is adjacent to the root volume. A few situations in the past when I have done such an exercise, I found the easiest route was to create a gparted boot USB, boot off it and alter partitions. If the exercise alters the UUID of partitions, the root partition would need to be mounted to update the /etc/fstab accordingly.
How about you describe your disk layout a bit more specifically for a start - like so
sgdisk -p /dev/sda
I have a 256 GB SSD with 50 GB free space that I would like to allocate to the root partition. This is what it looks like on disks. I had a USB ISO of fedora so I aleady tried booting it up to see if I could resize the root partition with that not mounted and I couldnât. It was still greyed out in disks -
output of âsudo fdisk -lâ, âdfâ and âlsblkâ -
[Destinyblade@fedora ~]$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for Destinyblade:
Disk /dev/sda: 931.51 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Disk model: WDC WD10SPZX-60Z
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: B873B1D6-2947-4888-981D-8A36C2C90ED0
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 2048 756058111 756056064 360.5G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda2 756058112 1953523711 1197465600 571G Linux filesystem
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 238.47 GiB, 256060514304 bytes, 500118192 sectors
Disk model: SK hynix BC511 HFM256GDJTNI-82A0A
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: D74E3B6F-D252-4021-A3D6-632DB4619FEC
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1 2048 534527 532480 260M EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p2 534528 567295 32768 16M Microsoft reserved
/dev/nvme0n1p3 567296 289062911 288495616 137.6G Microsoft basic data
/dev/nvme0n1p4 499140608 500105215 964608 471M Windows recovery environment
/dev/nvme0n1p5 394280960 396378111 2097152 1G Linux filesystem
/dev/nvme0n1p6 396378112 499140607 102762496 49G Linux filesystem
Partition table entries are not in disk order.
Disk /dev/zram0: 7.54 GiB, 8092909568 bytes, 1975808 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 4096 = 4096 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk /dev/loop0: 219 MiB, 229638144 bytes, 448512 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop1: 65.1 MiB, 68259840 bytes, 133320 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop2: 77.16 MiB, 80904192 bytes, 158016 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop3: 55.44 MiB, 58134528 bytes, 113544 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop4: 50.96 MiB, 53432320 bytes, 104360 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop5: 164.76 MiB, 172761088 bytes, 337424 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop6: 166.02 MiB, 174084096 bytes, 340008 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop7: 32.29 MiB, 33853440 bytes, 66120 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop8: 32.3 MiB, 33865728 bytes, 66144 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
[Destinyblade@fedora ~]$
[Destinyblade@fedora ~]$ df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
devtmpfs 3931916 0 3931916 0% /dev
tmpfs 3952056 14124 3937932 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 1580824 2244 1578580 1% /run
/dev/nvme0n1p6 51381248 32228756 18936396 63% /
/dev/nvme0n1p6 51381248 32228756 18936396 63% /home
/dev/nvme0n1p5 999320 195904 734604 22% /boot
/dev/loop0 224256 224256 0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/gnome-3-34-1804/72
tmpfs 3952056 68 3951988 1% /tmp
/dev/nvme0n1p1 262144 101228 160916 39% /boot/efi
/dev/loop1 66688 66688 0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/gtk-common-themes/1515
/dev/loop2 79104 79104 0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/discord/128
/dev/sda2 588287160 234200952 324133184 42% /mnt/83e58ee1-30ea-4093-91cc-005980994c71
/dev/sda1 378027496 227836380 150191116 61% /mnt/BC00C39700C356D4
/dev/loop3 56832 56832 0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/core18/2074
/dev/loop4 52224 52224 0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/snap-store/547
/dev/loop5 168832 168832 0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/gnome-3-28-1804/161
/dev/loop6 170112 170112 0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/signal-desktop/365
/dev/loop7 33152 33152 0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/snapd/12398
tmpfs 790408 160 790248 1% /run/user/1000
/dev/loop8 33152 33152 0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/snapd/12704
[Destinyblade@fedora ~]$
[Destinyblade@fedora ~]$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
loop0 7:0 0 219M 1 loop /var/lib/snapd/snap/gnome-3-34-1804/72
loop1 7:1 0 65.1M 1 loop /var/lib/snapd/snap/gtk-common-themes/1515
loop2 7:2 0 77.2M 1 loop /var/lib/snapd/snap/discord/128
loop3 7:3 0 55.4M 1 loop /var/lib/snapd/snap/core18/2074
loop4 7:4 0 51M 1 loop /var/lib/snapd/snap/snap-store/547
loop5 7:5 0 164.8M 1 loop /var/lib/snapd/snap/gnome-3-28-1804/161
loop6 7:6 0 166M 1 loop /var/lib/snapd/snap/signal-desktop/365
loop7 7:7 0 32.3M 1 loop /var/lib/snapd/snap/snapd/12398
loop8 7:8 0 32.3M 1 loop /var/lib/snapd/snap/snapd/12704
sda 8:0 0 931.5G 0 disk
ââsda1 8:1 0 360.5G 0 part /mnt/BC00C39700C356D4
ââsda2 8:2 0 571G 0 part /mnt/83e58ee1-30ea-4093-91cc-005980994c71
zram0 252:0 0 7.5G 0 disk [SWAP]
nvme0n1 259:0 0 238.5G 0 disk
âânvme0n1p1 259:1 0 260M 0 part /boot/efi
âânvme0n1p2 259:2 0 16M 0 part
âânvme0n1p3 259:3 0 137.6G 0 part
âânvme0n1p4 259:4 0 471M 0 part
âânvme0n1p5 259:5 0 1G 0 part /boot
âânvme0n1p6 259:6 0 49G 0 part /home
[Destinyblade@fedora ~]$
Should I put the preformatted text in a pastebin next time? I donât know if something this long is fine for this forum
The free space has to adjacent to the partition you want to expand. Your free space has other partitions in the way. You need to move the partitions around so that the free space is next to the root partition.
Iâm your case, move partition 5 to other end of the free space. Then you can expand partition 6
how do I move a partition?
Edit: I donât see any option for this in disks. I installed Gparted and I see an option called resize/move. I clicked on it for partition 5 and I canât do anything with it at all
I donât think gparted lets you modify a mounted disk. If it is your /boot partition, you can unmount it, move it and then mount it again. Just donât forget to remount it 
it is the /boot partition that I need to move around but Gparted canât unmount it, saying - target is busy.
So I assume the solution here would be to boot up live USB fedora, install Gparted on it and then move and resize since those partitions shouldnât be mounted when booting with a USB instead?
That would be one easy way to solve the problem, yes.
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gparted has a LiveUSB
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If I understand what you want to do, is to increase the root partition with unallocated space, with btrfs itâs simple: Format the unallocated space in Btrfs and at add to volume â/â:
sudo btrfs device add /dev/nvme0n1pN /
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I already did it. Iâll keep that in mind for later though
I add the documentation with more details: https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Using_Btrfs_with_Multiple_Devices#Adding_new_devices
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