(X/K/L) Ubuntu install: resizing ntfs partition takes too long (check ntfsresize progress, from console with strace)

Installing Lubuntu in a 2003 laptop, and had to resize the existing ntfs partition – after 2 hours of “resizing”, the linux installer was still in same picture, and we were waiting like blindlessly (the mouse moved, the window moved leaving a “trail”, but there was not indication of progress….)

So, after switching to a terminal with CTRL+F1, I could see from “top” that the program ntfsresize was running for 2hours and going… (it did not use much CPU or RAM dough, so it most certainly is an I/O speed bottleneck of the hardrive of the ntfs partition)

After more than 3 hours, I started to worry: what if in the end, I discover that something went wrong, and we have to restart it? what if we have to shutdown the pc before the end and risk destroying data?

So, with these inquietudes, I found that there is a way to snoop the stdoud and stderr of a running process – with strace

# I want to *snoop* the stdout(1) and stderr(2) of the process named 'ntfsresize'
# (run as root)
strace \
       -p $(pidof "ntfsresize")       \
       -e write=1,2   -e trace=write  \
       2>&1 | grep '(1'

…and it did it: ntfsresize is progressing, but it sure takes a LOT of time to finish (like 6 or 10 hours!)

Hope it helps

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