target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#fb3_img_img_56331ae2-c456-5387-b0a2-ec133b1105cd.png" alt="Warning"/> During the shrink process Windows tries to move any data stored near the end of the partition towards the front to make room for the new partition. However, some system files can't be moved, which may cause a problem and produce an error message. If this happens there are ways to move those files, but it gets much more complicated that what I can cover here. Fortunately, you aren't the first person to need to do this, so there's plenty of help available. One place to consult is the Microsoft Windows forum at answers.microsoft.com and you'll see lots of postings on how to handle this situation.
When the shrink process completes, a new partition appears in the Disk Manager listing. This new partition appears as Unassigned, and not have a drive letter assigned to it by Windows.
Partitioning using Linux tools
If you're in a situation where you don't currently have Windows installed on the hard drive but would like to partition the hard drive first, you can use Linux tools to do the work for you. The easy solution is to boot your PC using a Live distribution and use the disk management tools available. Plenty of Live distributions include disk management tools by default, but by far the most popular is the KNOPPIX Linux distribution.
The KNOPPIX Linux distribution was the first to create a live Linux version, even back before there were DVDs (it was called a LiveCD!). What keeps KNOPPIX at the top of the list of popular Linux distributions is the myriad of utilities it includes by default. It touts itself as a rescue disk — a way to boot your PC if things go horribly wrong with the existing operating system, and be able to troubleshoot and possibly fix issues.
Follow these steps to partition your hard drive using KNOPPIX:
1 Download the latest KNOPPIX CD or DVD ISO image from the KNOPPIX website at www.knopper.net.
2 Burn the ISO image onto a bootable CD, DVD, or USB stick using a standard ISO image burning tool.Jump to the “Creating a boot disk” section” for quick instructions on how to do this, then come back here.
3 Boot your PC using the KNOPPIX LiveDVD.At the boot: prompt, press the Enter key to start KNOPPIX.
4 Select Graphical Programs ⇒ startlxde from the main menu.The KNOPPIX graphical desktop environment comes up. It's a fairly bare-bones graphical desktop so it can run on just about any PC, but it gets the job done.
5 From the KNOPPIX graphical desktop, click the Terminal icon in the taskbar at the bottom of the desktop.A Terminal session starts that provides access to the command prompt (I talk more about that in Chapter 16).
6 At the command prompt in Terminal, enter the command: sudo gparted.The GParted application is a popular disk management tool for Linux. It provides an interface similar to the Windows disk management tool, as shown in Figure 2-4.
7 Right-click inside the partition you need to shrink.
8 Select Resize/Move from the pop-up menu.The Resize/Move dialog box opens, as shown in Figure 2-5.FIGURE 2-4: The Linux GParted disk management tool main window.FIGURE 2-5: The GParted Resize/Move dialog box.
9 In the Resize/Move dialog box, either drag the right end of the partition graphical box to resize the partition, or enter a new value in the New Size text box.The colored portion of the box indicates where the existing data in the partition is stored. You should be able to move the end of the partition down close to that area.
10 Click the Resize/Move button to initiate the resizing process.
After the hard drive is partitioned you can exit the tool and shut down KNOPPIX. And that's all there is to it! After you've resized the partitions, you're ready to move on to the next step in preparing your PC for Linux — checking your hardware, as described in the next section.
Double-Checking Hardware Compatibility
If you're installing Linux on hardware you already own, just give it a try and then see what doesn't work. Parts of this section address fixing hardware problems in a general sense. In other chapters, more specific items such as sound cards (Chapter 13), wireless cards (Chapter 9), and so on, are addressed. So, if you run into trouble, start in the specific sections dedicated to particular tasks, and then come here for more general help if you still haven't solved the problem.
The biggest hardware incompatibility problem areas are wireless network cards and the very latest whiz-bang multimedia hardware such as video cards and sound cards. You can check hardware compatibility lists before installing or purchasing new hardware, but they are of limited use because the hardware world changes so quickly.
If you're interested in looking, first try the support website for your particular Linux distribution, such as the Red Hat Enterprise Linux listings at access.redhat.com/ecosystem/search/#/category/ for the CentOS or Fedora distributions, or the Ubuntu listings at certification.ubuntu.com/ for any of the Ubuntu distributions.
Keep in mind that hardware compatibility lists usually focus on business equipment instead of home items, so just because you don't see something listed there doesn't mean it won't work.
If even thinking about computer hardware gives you dizzy spells, don't worry, you can find plenty of information on the Internet. A great place to start is www.tomshardware.com. Other places to look for information on how various devices work in Linux include
Other Linux-oriented websites: Quite a few websites are devoted to helping Linux users support hardware. The old standard was the generic Linux hardware list at
