resizing manually due to FAT32 limitations and GParted lacks support for the same
TIL: to backup a boot partition you just need to cp the files from the mounted boot partition to another folder. There is nothing special to backing up. You don’t even have to use dd.
extra reading
Bug 649324 – failure to move / resize fat32 partitions less than 256 MB in size
Workaround: Resizing FAT16/FAT32 Partitions (less than 256 MB)
- Backup the data in the FAT16/FAT32 partition
- Reformat the partition to EXT4
- Resize EXT4 partition to desired partition size
- Reformat the partition back to FAT16/FAT32
- Restore the FAT16/FAT32 files from backup
Note that if you use file system labels you may wish to re-label the partition at this time.
Gparted gives problems with Fat32 - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange Failure to move / resize fat32 partitions less than 256 MB in size / Newbie Corner / Arch Linux Forums
linux - Can’t resize /boot partition (fat32 / EFI system partition) - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange
Since this is the /boot partition containing your kernel, you’ll need to make its new position known to the bootloader (usually GRUB) afterwards.
The exact commands depend on the distribution you’re using, but you’ll usually boot a live CD/USB of your distro, mount your partitions in a chroot environment, and run grub-install /dev/<your main disk>.
With prior experience or a good tutorial, that’s done in five to ten minutes. ;)