Can I expand my Qubes partition with gparted?

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#1

I installed Qubes in a partition to try it out. It is working really well. I am thinking of dumping my other Linux install and using that space for Qubes. The areas are contiguous.

Can I use gparted to delete my other linux partition and then resize Qubes to take up that space?

Which VM would I install gparted into, if this is possible, or would I (temporarily) install it in dom0?

The space I am talking about is on a SCSI SSD. I have also been using some space on a fast NVME SSD. Is there a partition scheme which maximizes these resource? Someone mentioned that NVME SSDs were great for Qubes.

My machine is already running Qubes very quickly.

#2

Did you run an install with default settings?
Did you install on an encrypted partition?
Did you use the default settings using LVM?
If so, you will need to go though some hoops to extend your Qubes on to
the (soon to be) free space.
You don’t need gparted to do this - just a series of commands at the
command line. I suggest it is best to do this from a live distro.

When working with disk/partition reconfiguration there is always a risk
of data loss - make sure you have backups of your qubes and dom0 data,
and these backups are not stored on the disk you are working on.

The exact instructions will depend on your disk setup:

  1. enlarge encrypted volume,
  2. enlarge LVM physical volume,
  3. enlarge LVM logical volume,
  4. enlarge root file system

There are many guides online to help you do this.
You do not have to extend the existing logical volume for
qubes_dom0/root - you can have a different volume given over entirely
to qube storage - take a look at

Once you have decided how you want to use the new space and the NVME
SSD, and you have backups in place, work systematically.
If you want a sanity check before actually making the changes, post back
here with some detail.

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#3

Yes, that is my setup exactly.

That is interesting.

Will do, thanks.

#4

I would suggest you instead backup within the appropriate tool (works really well but may take some time):

And then reinstall the system with the full space on the disk and restore from the backup.

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#5

That makes senses. At least I won’t have to worry about a destructive problem that shows up later.

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#6

Yup. The only thing to be careful about is that if you backup VMs with the same names as the default, when installing from scratch you should either install qubes with no default VMs (there is an option in the installer) or before restoring, deleting the VMs with the the same names as the ones you’ll restore.

Otherwise you’ll end up with sys-net2 and work2 as well as sys-net and work.

#7

Because I am fundamentally lazy the last thing I would think of doing is
reinstalling Qubes: horses for courses.
But since I would have a full backup + salt configs, I wouldn’t be worried
about any problems arising.