[sf-lug] GKsu has long been EOLed

[aaronco36]

Quoting David Rosenstrauch <darose at darose.net> :

> P.S.  Before someone jumps in and says it:  yes, there's nothing
> that gparted does that couldn't be done from the command line.
> But it's one of those super-convenient swiss-army-knife type
> tools that I think justifies using a GUI.  Having a UI to set
> up a new disk - partitioning, formatting file systems, etc.
> - is something I've found very useful on several occasions.

Yes, and a true-life case of that for me as well. Some detail, hopefully 
not a TMI extreme.

Had a 64bit Windows 7, 120GB hdd, 4GB RAM machine set up less than 4 years 
ago for a relative computer beginner set up as a 40GB "C:\" drive, a 40GB 
"D:\" drive, and an unused 20GB+ "E:\" drive. An available 250GB external 
USB drive was partitioned into 7 * 31GB FAT32-formatted individual 
partitions and labelled (perhaps unimaginatively) as "H-drive", 
"I-drive",... thru "N-drive" for data storage accessible from both Windows 
7 and a future Linux distro OS.

((Bit of an aside
.....Why would anyone in their right mind wish to format such partitions 
into such whimsical 31GB sizes you might ask?
Because in sizes _greater than_ 32GB specifically on USB drives, Windows 7 
would continue to insist that such partitions just _wouldn't_ take the 
mutual-OS-recognizable FAT32 formatting; IIRC, NTFS or exFAT were 
recommended for partition sizes >32GB instead.
.....))

The Windows "E:\" drive was wiped out (from Windows' Disk Management 
utility) and replaced with a limited Linux Mint 17 install in the same 
space to obtain a dual-boot system. Both OS's recognized and managed the 
user's data on the FAT32 H- thru N-drive partitions.

Along with _much_ copying-and-moving-fu and using Windows' own "Defrag" 
utility within Windows 7 itself, successfully used Linux Mint 17's 
GParted, and most definitely _by_ using superuser privileges, to.....
1. Shrink the Windows 7 partition sizes down to 35GB for "C:\" and a very 
minimal 16GB for "D:\"
2. Expand the sole 20GB+ /<root> partition for Mint into 30GB+ and move it 
closer to the beginning of the hdd
3. Create an effective 6GB swap partition after /<root> and a useful 20GB+ 
/home partition follwing the swap partition
4. Split that external 250GB external USB into just a pair of much larger 
100GB+ NTFS file-storage partitions recognized both by Windows 7 and Linux 
Mint (using ntfs-3g for the latter)
5. Move remaining Windows 7 and Linux Mint user's personal files off of 
the "C:\" and /<root> partitions respectively -- to clean up those 
non-user-data partitions -- and then onto "D:\", /home, and the scattering 
of H- thru N-drive partitions
6. Eventually move around all the user's personal files scattered all over 
the H- thru N-drive partitions onto the pair of much larger 100GB+ NTFS 
file-storage partitions recognized both by Windows 7 and Linux Mint.
It ended up that all the user's personal files took up less than 50GB of 
disk space, so these personal files were duplicated onto each of the 
100GB+ NTFS partitions as a slight backup safety measure.

Am guessing that this machine was upgraded to one of the latest stable LTS 
releases (v18.3) sometime last year, and those much larger 100GB+ NTFS 
file-storage partitions have already been backed-up onto other+larger 
external media a few times since the above GParted steps 1-6 were carried 
out. Am continuing to [successfully] get the user to apply the continuous 
Windows 7 security patches, will be soon upgrading this machine for the 
user to the latest LM19.1 stable, and will have to apply all those Windows 
7 patches all the way up to Microsoft's "off&&al" dismemberment of Windows 
7 support next year. Am hoping that this user moves all the way to Linux 
Mint as seamlessly as possible and ASAP :-\ &ici&

For sure with all the Coulda/Shoulda/Woulda mention+advice to
use 'ssh -Y...'
use liveCDs for external use of GParted
FUD-caution if someone doesn't take this-or-that measure ... etcetera,
but this above scenario has been working out quite acceptably-well for 
all-concerned thank you very much :-)

-A

----------------