Q: How to increase root partition size? Running ubuntu 14.04 LTS
How can I extend the size of my root directory?
Filesystem      1K-blocks       Used  Available Use% Mounted on
/cow              2000144    1944256          0 100% /
udev              8173044          8    8173036   1% /dev
tmpfs             1636908       1392    1635516   1% /run
/dev/sdd1         5754872    3096492    2658380  54% /cdrom
/dev/loop1         985344     985344          0 100% /rofs
none                    4          0          4   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs             8184536       1236    8183300   1% /tmp
none                 5120          0       5120   0% /run/lock
none              8184536        152    8184384   1% /run/shm
none               102400         40     102360   1% /run/user
/dev/sdd2         1983056      48668    1815604   3% /mnt

Results of sudo lsblk -f
NAME   FSTYPE   LABEL MOUNTPOINT
sda    btrfs    Media
sdb    btrfs    Media
sdc    btrfs    X
sdd
├─sdd1 vfat           /cdrom
└─sdd2 ext4           /home
loop0  ext3
loop1  squashfs       /rofs

Results of sudo lsblk -m
AME     SIZE OWNER GROUP MODE
sda      3.7T root  disk  brw-rw----
sdb      1.8T root  disk  brw-rw----
sdc      5.5T root  disk  brw-rw----
sdd      7.5G root  disk  brw-rw----
├─sdd1   5.5G root  disk  brw-rw----
└─sdd2     2G root  disk  brw-rw----
loop0      2G root  disk  brw-rw----
loop1  962.1M root  disk  brw-rw----

So I am just starting out with Ubuntu and forgot how my installation went. And I understand that my root is on /cow. But the thing is that I cannot find /cow anywhere in GParted (even after booting from a live GParted USB, I could not find it to resize it).
Am trying to increase the usable disk space of it.

So;


*

*Which disk is /cow at?

*How can I increase the size?

*What is /cdrom?


A: You are running Ubuntu(?) live booted from /dev/sdd. The iso file was extracted to /dev/sdd1 mounted at /cdrom for historical reasons, and you created /dev/sdd2 for /home. The root partition is in RAM (a ramdrive) in a live system, and the RAM allocated is approximately half of the RAM available (automatically).
If you want a bigger root partition, you can create a new partition and give it the label casper-rw. It would also be possible to reconfigure your system and use /dev/sdd2 for that purpose. But I would suggest that you backup whatever you have saved in your home partition to some other location before you do that.
At boot Ubuntu will select the partition labeled casper-rw and use it for an overlay, so that you can store installed programs and tweaks (and you get a persistent live system).
Another option is to start from the beginning and create a persistent live system with mkusb. It will do the configuring for you automatically. See the following links,
help.ubuntu.com/community/mkusb
mkusb/persistent
A third option is to create a partition labeled casper-rw in another drive, one of the internal drives, or in another USB drive or a memory card.
'Simple persistence'
