I have been using Ubuntu 5.04 for about 3 weeks on a 9GB partion on my laptop, the other 20 GB is used for Windows and its apps.

After installing some software I was given a message that I have no more free space.

after typing df I got this.
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda7 8665340 7834288 390876 96% /
tmpfs 120392 0 120392 0% /dev/shm
/dev/hda1 6144828 4325872 1818956 71% /media/windows
/dev/hda5 10241404 4132628 6108776 41% /media/D
/dev/hda6 3694916 2306444 1388472 63% /media/E
/dev 8665340 7834288 390876 96% /.dev
none 5120 2812 2308 55% /dev
/dev/hdc 7269962 7269962 0 100% /media/cdrom0

As you can see I had to delete what I was installing so I could get down to 96%.
What is /.dev
I understand what /dev is but not the other.
Is there anything on Linux that can be deleted safely like temp files or installation files that have been left on.

Or do I need to seriously get a bigger hd.

Regards

how many programs have you installed?, maybe you could loose some ones you dont use or if you haven't done so already do a apt-get clean, to clear your apt cache.

Thanks for the sugestion on apt-get clean I gained 3% so now I am 93% full.

The programs I have:
Gnomebaker
Blender 3D
Dia
Inkscape Vector Illustrator
Amorak
Audiocity
DVDRip
Kino
MpLayer
Reaplayer
Totem Player
Streamtuner
Xine
OpenOffice

and the default Gnome installed packages.

Can all this serious take up all that space?

Looking at my Windows apps folder, I have alot of programs that helps me with video, audio and 3D but nothing that has swollowed up my space.

Sorry if this lot does not help.

Regards

Check /tmp, /var/tmp, and /var/log

Clear out temp files, and check that your syslog isn't allowed to grow to infinite sizes.

that's a looot of space for just programs. as oneandoneis2 said, it sounds like a log or temp file problem.

check
/var/cache/apt/archives
these are installed .deb packages which you can write to cd - just in case you reinstall OS and you don't want to download'em again.

I went through sinaptics and deleted some software didn't want that comes preinstalled, like Gnome games and chat programs, and I got down to 90%.

Looking at the acrchives gives me this, but I think about a week ago I apt-get clean so that is why I don't have any downloads left. That's ok, I'm learning.

total 4
-rw-r----- 1 root root 0 2005-06-18 09:00 lock
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2005-06-17 08:52 partial

For the /tmp it is clean and tells me I have 817Mb of free space but the /var/tmp folder everytime I log out and log in it fills up with the same files and folders taking up 817MB of space, when I delete them and do a df It still shows that I have 90%.

I'm sure nearly a Gb of space claimed would give me more than the 90% space left that it shows me.

An on going problem but I do appreciate all your help, I have learnt some stuff I didn't know. especially the archives.

Regards

Sorry, I forgot about the varlog.

I've looked in the folder and have two files called syslog and syslog.o, I've opened them up with a text editor and it shows me a lot of information pertaining to operations that have been carried out.

Regards

What output do you get from

ls -al /var/log/

also post

du /var/log -h

Everything is fine now.

After deleting a few other files that I didn't need I am down to 25%.

Initially again it was 93% but after a reboot which seemed to take a while I checked everything and it gave me a healthy 25%.

There is something that could of helped along the way, knowing that all my Windows partions are seperate, C:Win. D:Apps. E:Graphics for some stupid reason I thought I did the same on linux but looking at it I didn't which would of helped out so know I will repartion my disk from now on.

I have been thinkings of /, /tmp, /home, /usr and /var being seperate partions.

Do you have any other recommendations on what should or should not be on seperate partions.

Please don't think it has been a waste of time because what you have told me to do has helped me a lot and helped me to understand the system more than before.

Again regards