What you want to do, can be done with a combination of parted
and resize2fs.  Take good backups first.  It would have been
easier if you were using LVM.

basic strategy, resize2fs to shrink /usr/local file system,
then parted to shrink /usr/local partition,
then parted to grow /usr partition.
The last time I did this I had to actually delete one of
the partitions out of the partition table and then re-create it
in the same spot.  Not for amateurs.

Steve


On Thu, 22 Jul 2010, Larry Linder wrote:

> Because we are in a little town (wide spot in road) the DSL is not the most
> reliable.  That is why I down loaded the 8 disks from another source and
> wanted to update systems to SL 5.5.
> This install try was an update and not a new installation.
> There have been a lot of additions to this system, for doing FFT, Power
> Spectral Density, and a lot of signal processing.   Unfortunately /usr has
> expaned beyond our first guess and /usr/local is almost empty.
> Since these may not be adjacent partitions.  Is there anyway to expand /usr
> and shrink /usr/local.
>
> Thanks for the insight.
>
> Larry Linder
>
> On Thursday 22 July 2010 10:32, you wrote:
>> Larry Linder wrote:
>>> When installing SL5.5 over SL5.4 about mid way into the Disk 2 I get an
>>> Error message to REBOOT.
>>> 204 Meg on /mnt/sysimage/usr
>>>
>>> When I look at /mnt   it is empty after reboot.
>>> My guess is that update ran out of disk space, and the the sysimage/usr
>>> is removed after ERROR is detected and REBOOT message is displayed.
>>>
>>> Is there anyway to change the location of sysimage/usr to some other disk
>>> on the system?
>>>
>>> The sda? contains all the system directories and is 36 G, about 1/2 of it
>>> is uncommitted.   /usr is 8G and 94% full.  Other directories have at
>>> least a G of spare space.
>>>
>>> I need to change partition sizes but hate to waste a lot of time
>>> guessing.
>>>
>>> Thank You
>>> Larry Linder
>>
>> Hi Larry,
>> One quick question before I proceed.  Are you doing a real "upgrade" or
>> an "install"
>> An "upgrade" is where SL 5.4 stays there and you just update the
>> packages in it.  If that is the case, using the installer isn't the
>> recommended way of updating it.  It is much easier to to an upgrade via
>> yum. http://www.scientificlinux.org/documentation/howto/upgrade.5x
>>
>> An "install" is where you wipe and reformat everything except maybe your
>> home and data partitions.
>>
>> I am going to assume that you are doing a "install" or SL 5.5 over a
>> previously installed SL 5.4.
>>
>> If you are doing this, then you *need* to reformat the partitions that
>> do not contain your home area or data.  Otherwise the install starts
>> adding to what is already there, and as you saw, it can fill up.
>>
>> Patitions you should format if you are doing an install.
>>
>> /
>> /usr
>> /var
>> /boot
>>
>> As Steve said in a previous email, if you can fit everything onto /
>> there is often no reason to create a /usr.  Take that space and add it to /
>>
>> Hopefully this is enough information, along with Steve's,  to get you going
>>
>> Troy
>

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven C. Timm, Ph.D  (630) 840-8525
[log in to unmask]  http://home.fnal.gov/~timm/
Fermilab Computing Division, Scientific Computing Facilities,
Grid Facilities Department, FermiGrid Services Group, Assistant Group Leader.