GNU Parted explained

GNU Parted
Author:Andrew Clausen, Lennert Buytenhek
Developer:Various
Programming Language:C
Operating System:Linux, GNU Hurd
Genre:Partition editor
License:GPL-3.0-or-later

GNU Parted (from GNU partition editor) is a free partition editor, used for creating and deleting partitions. This is useful for creating space for new operating systems, reorganising hard disk usage, copying data between hard disks, and disk imaging. It was written by Andrew Clausen and Lennert Buytenhek.

It consists of a library, libparted, and a command-line front-end, parted, that also serves as a reference implementation.

, GNU Parted runs only under Linux and GNU/Hurd.[1]

Other front-ends

Text-based

nparted is the newt-based frontend to GNU Parted.[2]

Projects have started for an ncurses frontend,[3] that also could be used in Windows (with GNUWin32 Ncurses).[4]

fatresize offers a command-line interface for FAT16/FAT32 non-destructive resize and uses the GNU Parted library.[5]

tparted is the TV/FV-based frontend for GNU Parted.[6]

Graphical front-ends

GParted is a graphical program using the parted libraries. It is adapted for GNOME, one of the two major desktop environments (the other being KDE) for Unix-like installations. It is often included as utility on many live CD distributions to make partitioning easier.

KDE Partition Manager is a Qt graphical program, also included on many live CD distributions, which made use of parted libraries; in version 4.0 its backend KPMcore was ported away from libparted to sfdisk.[7] QtParted was another graphical front-end based on Qt that is no longer being actively maintained.

Pyparted[8] (also called python-parted)[9] is the Python front-end for GNU Parted.

Linux distributions that come with parted by default include Slackware[10], Knoppix[11], sidux, SystemRescueCD[12], Parted Magic[13], and GParted Live[14] .

Limitations

Parted previously had support for operating on filesystems within partitions (creating, moving, resizing, copying). This support was removed in version 3.0.[15]

See also

Notes and References

  1. https://www.gnu.org/software/parted/manual/parted.html#Supported-Platforms GNU Parted supported platforms
  2. http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nparted.html Overview of nparted source package
  3. https://github.com/davekong/cparted cparted - ncurses interface in python/pyparted
  4. https://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/ncurses.htm Ncurses
  5. https://sourceforge.net/projects/fatresize/ SourceForge.net: fatresize
  6. https://github.com/Kagamma/tparted github.com: tparted
  7. Web site: KDE Partition Manager 4.0. stikonas.eu. en-GB. 2024-01-11.
  8. https://github.com/dcantrell/pyparted pyparted – Python bindings for GNU parted (libparted) github page
  9. http://packages.ubuntu.com/dapper/python-parted python-parted package in Ubuntu dapper
  10. Web site: PACKAGES.TXT (Slackware-current) . slackware.osuosl.org . 2025-12-25.
  11. Web site: Complete software list DVD (dpkg-l-70.txt) . knopper.net . 2025-12-25.
  12. Web site: Detailed packages list (SystemRescue) . system-rescue.org . 2025-12-25.
  13. Web site: Current Program List . partedmagic.com . 2025-12-25.
  14. Web site: GParted -- Live CD/USB/PXE/HD . gparted.org . 2025-12-25.
  15. http://savannah.gnu.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=6837 parted 3.0 release notes