Using opensuse 13.1 on an Imac intel with rEFIt as the go between.
I have added partitions before and wound up reinstalling Linux, would like to avoid this if possible. Is there a way to customize the grub2 bootloader to adapt to having the partition shoved from sda3 to sda4?
Thank you kindly,
If you make sure that everything is mounted by UUID, it will probably just work. In “/etc/fstab”, change the “/dev/disk/by-id/somecrazystring-part3” to “UUID=a_different_crazy_string”.
You can find the UUID with the “blkid” command.
Maybe also check “/etc/default/grub”. In that case, use “/dev/disk/by-uuid/a_different_crazy_string”. Then run
grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
Hmm, if you are still using legacy grub on that machine, instead change “/boot/grub/menu.lst”.
Once everything relevant is using UUID, it changes in partition numbering should not matter.
Did that booted okay until I added the partition.
Maybe also check “/etc/default/grub”. In that case, use “/dev/disk/by-uuid/a_different_crazy_string”. Then run
Could not find anything with a “crazy_string” in it.
Hmm, if you are still using legacy grub on that machine, instead change “/boot/grub/menu.lst”.
Once everything relevant is using UUID, it changes in partition numbering should not matter.
Doesn’t appear to be running legacy.
I put in an empty partition to test (easier to undo the damage) and booted over to the Linux side, stalled at grub2 rescue awaiting some command that I don’t know.
Thanks for the reply and suggestions.
On one occasion, I have seen grub2 get stuck on trying to find the UUID of an empty partition. Maybe formatting it (leave it empty, but with a file system) would avoid that.
If you are using crypto, you might also have to make changes in “/etc/crypttab”.
It is possible that you still are using device names somewhere “/dev/sda3” for example. Those would need to be fixed, too. Places to check would be “/etc/fstab” and “/etc/default/grub”.
Maybe I missed something, in which case I hope someone else will step in.
The partition was automatically formatted to Mac.
Perhaps a stupid question but what if I was to change the “ata-WDC_somecrazystring-part3” to “ata-WDC_somecrazystring-part4”?
Each “part” is a partition. So it would change reference from partition 3 to partition 4
So that would probably work if I changed that and then built the partition, as long as something else didn’t get in the way.
Maybe is the partition formatted with the Apple file system?
The added partition will be
Don’t know much about Apple but as I recall the Apple file systems are not fully supported in Linux. Could be wrong it has been a while since the question came up here.
Well all attempts failed. It turned out faster to just reinstall, not like I had a lot of configurations to deal with but I would like to learn. 
Thanks again for the input.