I'm trying to resize a too small boot partition I stupidly made when I did the initial install.  Auto updates are failing because there is not enough space on the boot (root) volume.  What I believe I need to do is create a bootable USB stick and resize the main partition, making it smaller by about 10Gb, and then resize the boot partition into the freed up space.

This is probably stupid easy, but for whatever reason, I am unable to get Ubuntu to do my bidding.  Before I came up with creating a startup stick, I was trying to use Disks to accomplish the task, but Disks will not allow me to resize main partition on the fly.  Okay, so it has to be done from a bootable CD or stick, right?  Nope, didn't work for me. 

When I click on additional options, Resize is greyed out.  I am missing a step somewhere and need a bit of help to figure out what the missing link is.  Maybe I need a third party partition manager like Partition Magic, I just dunno.

 

 

I have run Linux, but not enough to speak competently on this. I searched for "how to resize linux boot partition" and among another hundred links came up with this:

12.10 - How do I resize my /boot partition? - Ask Ubuntu

In Windows partitions must be contiguous. And expansion (or contraction) is usually done from the 'back' of the partition, not the front. At least with the usual system utilities. So free space must be available for that.

I saw the article suggested removing old kernels from /boot, if there are any. That would free up some space for updates.

The only reliable way to do this would be to do a standalone backup of the 2 partitions, resize them while still in standalone mode, then restore from the backup media. To be safe, I would take a backup of all your partitions just in case anything goes wrong with modifying the partition table.

1 hour ago, Mr.Stu said:

To be safe, I would take a backup of all your partitions just in case anything goes wrong with modifying the partition table.

I triple-thumbs-up that. In fact, if there's anything really important on that machine do double full backups to separate media. USB portable or thumb drives are cheap.

Ever had a power failure while executing major disk rearrangement? Hahahahahaha!

I might be late to the party on this but..

You need to boot off a stick because you cant' resize a mounted partition. Used Gparted instead of disks, if you're still looking for help post here since I'm subbed I'll see it. What's your current partition scheme?

Also as everyone said there is risk so backs up my help.