gparted/README

GPARTED
=======
Gparted is the Gnome Partition Editor for creating, reorganizing, and
deleting disk partitions.

A hard disk is usually subdivided into one or more partitions.  These
partitions are normally not re-sizable (making one smaller and the
adjacent one larger.)  Gparted makes it possible for you to take a
hard disk and change the partition organization, while preserving the
partition contents.

More specifically, Gparted enables you to create, destroy, resize,
move, check, label, and copy partitions, and the file systems
contained within.  This is useful for creating space for new operating
systems, reorganizing disk usage, and mirroring one partition with
another (disk imaging).

Gparted can also be used with storage devices other than hard disks,
such as USB flash drives, and memory cards.

Visit http://gparted.org for more information.


NEWS
----
Information about changes to this release, and past releases can be
found in the file:
   NEWS


INSTALL
-------
a. Pre-built Binary

   Many GNU/Linux distributions already provide a pre-built binary
   package for GParted.  Instructions on how to install GParted on
   some distributions is given below:

      (K)Ubuntu or Debian
      -------------------
      sudo apt-get install gparted

      Fedora
      ------
      su -
      yum install gparted

b. Building from Source

   Building Gparted from source requires that several dependencies are
   installed.  These include:
      g++
      e2fsprogs
      parted
      gtkmm24
      gettext
      gnome-doc-utils     - required if help documentation is to be built

   On (K)Ubuntu, these dependencies may be obtained by running the
   following command;
      sudo apt-get install build-essential e2fsprogs uuid uuid-dev \
                           gnome-common libparted-dev libgtkmm-2.4-dev \
                           libdevmapper-dev gnome-doc-utils

   On Fedora, you will need to run (as root);
      yum install gtkmm24-devel parted-devel e2fsprogs-devel gettext \
                  perl(XML::Parser) desktop-file-utils

   Briefly, the shell commands `./configure; make; make install' should
   configure, build, and install this package.  If you wish to build
   this package without the help documentation use the --disable-doc
   flag:
      E.g., ./configure --disable-doc
 
   The INSTALL file contains further GNU installation instructions.


COPYING
-------
The copying conditions can be found in the file:
   COPYING


DIRECTORIES
------------
compose  - contains String::ucompose() function

data     - contains desktop icons

doc      - contains manual page documentation

help     - contains GParted Manual and international translations

include  - contains source header files

m4       - contains macro files

po       - contains international language translations

src      - contains C++ source code


DISTRIBUTION NOTES
------------------
Gparted uses GNU libparted to detect and manipulate devices and partition
tables.  Several optional packages provide additional file system support.
Optional packages include:

   btrfs-tools
   e2fsprogs
   dosfstools
   mtools          - required to read and write FAT16/32 volume labels
   hfsutils
   hfsprogs
   jfsutils
   ntfsprogs
   reiser4progs
   reiserfsprogs
   xfsprogs

   NOTE:  * If the vol_id command is in the search PATH, it will be used
            to read linux-swap, reiser4, hfs, and hfs+ file system
            volume labels.
          * If the blkid command is in the search path, it will be used
            to read file system UUIDs and labels.  It is also used for
            ext4 file detection. 
            blkid is part of the e2fsprogs package.


For Linux software RAID support, the following package is required:
   mdadm           - tool to administer Linux MD arrays


For dmraid support, the following packages are required:

   dmsetup         - removes /dev/mapper entries
   dmraid          - lists dmraid devices and creates /dev/mapper entries

For GNU/Linux distribution dmraid support, the following are required:
   - kernel built with Device Mapping and Mirroring built.  From menuconfig,
     it is under Device Drivers -> <something> (RAID & LVM).
   - dmraid drive arrays activated on boot (e.g., dmraid -ay).


Several more commands are optionally used by GParted if found on the system.
These commands include:

   blkid         - used to read volume labels and detect ext4 file systems
   vol_id        - used to read volume labels
   udisks        - used to prevent automounting of file systems
   devkit-disks  - used to prevent automounting of file systems
   hal-lock      - used to prevent automounting of file systems
   gksu          - used to acquire root privileges in .desktop file,
                   but only if available when gparted source is configured.
   kpartx        - used in dmraid to create /dev/mapper entries such as
                     /dev/mapper/isw_idedecefg_Volume0p1
   udevinfo      - used in dmraid to query udev name
   udevadm       - used in dmraid to query udev name