is it possible to shrink OSX install to make room for Linux?

I have a 37GB hard drive, which the entire disk allocated for OSX. I was hoping to shrink down this install, leaving maybe 4GB to install Kubuntu linux.
I got iPartition thinking it would allow me to shrink down the OSX partition. But it doesnt seem able to do it. Probably because Im trying to resize a partition that is in use.
Any ideas how I could go about shrink my OSX partition to make a little room for linux, but still save my OSX drive. Id rather not have to do a clean reinstall, if possible. Is there a way to create an image of my OSX install, then repartition the disk, and reload the OSX image?
Thanks for any ideas.

You are correct that you can't alter the size of the startup partition with iPartition.

You can use CarbonCopy Cloner or Super Duper to clone your OS X volume to another device. Then partition your drive and copy the clone back to your new OS X volume.

Would it be possible to clone the drive to a device over the network, such a samba share?
I would be able to use one of the programs mentioned to backup my drive, but, i still wouldnt have a way to respace my partitions. Would I just have to reinstall OSX, but creating a smaller partition, so I would have room for linux, and then after OSX is installed, copy the backup back to the system [i have a feeling this wont go to smoothly if im trying to copy the clone by to an active partition].
Seems like maybe I'm just better off doing a thorough data backup, and then doing a fresh install?
Thanks for the help.

Again, you can't do this to the startup volume (what you are calling an active partition)

This is what I do (and have done it often)…
clone my OS X volume to an external firewire drive
start up from the firewire volume
erase the internal drive and create 2 partitions on it
clone the firewire volume back to the OS X partition
restart using the internal OS X volume

the 2nd partition would then be available for any use.

awesome. thanks for clearing things up. I was totally forgetting that I could boot off the external drive after things are cloned.
Now the question is should I go thru all the effort just to be able to run linux on a seperate partition (its not as if i -need- it, osx serves me quite well).

if you are done then you are. if not, i think you can use iPartition to create a linux partition but you need something called iPartition bootable CD. it is the same software but in different format that let u boot from CD and alter the disk you want to partition.

have a go at google.

hello, you might check out the Ubuntu forums. They have a whole Mac section Linux probably has a way to do what you need on the live install cd.