[ILUG] Non-Destructive Partitioning

[Gavin McCullagh]

On Sun, 19 Feb 2006, Mark Page wrote:

> A long time since I posted to the list cos I've been on a Mac for the  
> last 18 months. Nevertheless still been following.
> 
> Really want to get Ubuntu on my iBook but it seems I can't do it  without 
> wiping the disk with a re-install thus allowing me to re- partition. Does 
> anybody know if there is a re-partition tool out  there that will allow me 
> to preserve my OSX without wiping clean?

GNU Parted claims to be able to shrink HFS+ partitions:

http://gnu.univ-paris.com/software/parted/parted.html

Looking at the changelog, that is supported since November:

"2005-07-11  Guillaume Knispel <k_guillaume at libertysurf.fr> Summary: HFSX
and journaled HFS+ / HFSX now supported.  The HFS+ / HFSX allocation bitmap
is saved during relocation. This is safer."

The Gentoo PPC installer docs says this 

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-ppc.xml?part=1&chap=4

"Warning: parted is able to resize partitions. On the Installation CD there
are patches included to resize HFS+ filesystem. Unfortunately it is risky
to resize HFS+ journaled filesystems, be sure to switch off journaling in
Mac OS X first and make sure to run a disk checking tool after the resize.
Everything you do with resizing in parted you do it at your own risk! Be
sure to have a backup of your data!"

I'd guess that's based on a version prior to parted saying they had full
support for HFS+.

Gavin