[ubuntu-uk] Using Gparted

[Alan Pope]

On 26 May 2010 14:46, Rowan Berkeley <rowan.berkeley at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Quite so, but all the program files and associated data are in sda1,
> which remains mounted. The only things in the partitions that are being
> moved are the swap space and the user files. The swap space could
> certainly be called on while one was moving it, but there are special
> procedures to cope with this, namely making a new swap space where you
> want it, then somehow setting the machine to switch over from using the
> old swap space to the new swap space next time it starts up, thus
> avoiding any overlaps. At least, I assume that is the idea. The user
> files (My Documents, My Music, etc.) are not updated by anything. The
> whole essence of this is that one is not talking about unmounting the
> entire internal hard disk; each partition can be separately mounted and
> unmounted, hopefully without affecting the others.
>

There are lots of files in your home directory and indeed elsewhere
that get written to (and read from) whilst you're 'doing nothing'. So
I wouldn't assume that the filesystem is safe to be played with just
because you don't have any desktop applications open.

Still, I personally wouldn't monkey with partitions on a disk that has
already mounted ones, especially not a productive system.

Cheers,
Al.