Upgrading from fedora 7 to 8 on my laptop

bourne · 01-15-2008, 11:41 PM

Hey guys.
I have a question for you all.
I just attempted to upgrade my fedora 7 installation to fedora 8 using the yum upgrade method. Everything was going smoothly until I realized that I am completely out of room on my root partition ( / ). I am curious, is there away that I can make my root partition larger without having to reformation and repartition everything? I am not using LVM's so I know that is definitely an issue. I hope that there is still away. If there is I would greatly appreciate any suggestions.

Oh I should also mention that I do have available space on the hard drive that currently isn't in use. I am running a dual boot with Windows XP and Fedora 7. The extra space I have is located after the fedora installation

Here is my partitions as they sit now:

Code:

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda6             4.8G  4.5G   12K 100% /
/dev/sda2              99M   18M   76M  19% /boot
tmpfs                 501M     0  501M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda5             9.5G  151M  8.9G   2% /main
/dev/sda3              38G  5.2G   31G  15% /home
/dev/sr0              3.2G  3.2G     0 100% /media/Fedora 8 i386 DVD

Thanks in advance
todd

unSpawn · 01-16-2008, 06:15 AM

Typical trouble for any partitioning scheme where / includes both /tmp and /var instead of separate partitions. You could partition and add the free space you mentioned (best option) or (temporarily) do this as root account user:
- clean up logs if you expect benefit from that (only if you use compression): 'logrotate'
- clean up temp dir contents: 'tmpwatch'
* inspect /tmp and /var/tmp for any leftovers that should be deleted.
- clean up RPM database temp files: 'rm -f /var/lib/rpm/__*'
- drop to runlevel 1 so nothing uses /var: 'telinit 1'
- check that: 'lsof -w -n +D/var'
* if anything still hogs /var gracefully stop it or kill the PIDs.
- copy /var contents: 'cp --preserve=all -r /var /main'
- copy /tmp and fold it into /var/tmp: 'cp --preserve=all -r -f /tmp /main/var'
- bind new var over old one: 'mount --bind /main/var /var'
- bind /var/tmp over /tmp: 'mount --bind /var/tmp /tmp'
- make sure permissions stick: 'chmod 1777 /tmp /var/tmp'
- check if mounts and space are as required: 'mount; df -mh'
- back to runlevel 3: 'telinit 3'
and you're ready. Again, this is a generic temporary solution. If you want the binds to stick you'll need to add it to your fstab, see 'man mount' for details on "bind". Note you don't have to --bind whole trees (but say only /var/tmp) if you for instance don't use RPM's rollback (--repackage, ends up in /var/spool/repackage) or say don't have a large /var/log. Also note that if you 'cp' instead of 'mv' underneath the binds the original dir contents are still available once the bind is gone.

bourne · 01-16-2008, 11:07 AM

Thank you so much for the response. I thought about it and I think I have decided to just go ahead with a fresh install and reorganize my partitions. On that note I was wondering if anyone could suggestion to be a smart way to organize my partitions for my fedora 8 installation. I have about 50 gigs available on my laptop to give to fedora 8, with my windows XP installation taking up the rest.

My current partition setup is listed in my first message. Can anyone suggest a better way of splitting the partitions up to ensure that I don't run out of room in the future. As well could someone maybe explain where exactly the information is stored. I am assuming that all the information pertaining to fedora is stored on the root directory ( / ) and user information is stored on the other remaining partitions excluding the swap and boot partitions.

Any suggestions would greatly be appreciated
thanks
todd

unSpawn · 01-16-2008, 01:34 PM

Reading does do the trick. Here's ones view, here's the Fedora 8 docs on partitioning and then there's threads at LQ about partitioning: just use the search function. Read some, propose a scheme and *then* ask people to comment. That way you'll have the knowldge to determine if a suggestion is totally bogoid (like the /swap + / scheme).

bourne · 01-16-2008, 01:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by unSpawn

Reading does do the trick. Here's ones view, here's the Fedora 8 docs on partitioning and then there's threads at LQ about partitioning: just use the search function. Read some, propose a scheme and *then* ask people to comment. That way you'll have the knowldge to determine if a suggestion is totally bogoid (like the /swap + / scheme).

ah very good idea man. I really appreciate you taking the time to respond. I am still learning linux so I am just feeling my way through how to do everything properly. I will do some reading and purpose a plan for the partition and then see how it flies with you guys

...thanks again for the help i really appreciate it

todd

bourne · 01-19-2008, 11:15 AM

I have reviews the suggestions layed on the following page: http://www.hccfl.edu/pollock/AUnix1/Partitioning.htm . Based upon that and my plans for what I will use the partition for I have decided to increase the size of my /root partition to accommodate any and all additional software that I choose to install down the road. I continually change things on my laptop so I think this is probably my best option. I will more then likely leave my other partition more or less the same size. Now I understand more or less what is stored on each partition so hopefully in the future I can make better decisions. Thanks again for the help and suggestions.

Todd