After causing big problems installing Ubuntu on my laptop last night, I decided to begin using linux on my desktop instead, dual booting with XP. I split my 200gb hard drive for the two OS's and they both boot fine.

I am a bit confused about the file system Ubuntu uses (Using version 9.04) I was prompted to install security updates, 95mb worth...ok, fine. When I run update manager, and tell it to install updates, it gives me a error:

Not enough free disk space

The upgrade needs a total of 348M free space on disk '/'. Please free at least an additional 348M of disk space on '/'. Empty your trash and remove temporary packages of former installations using 'sudo apt-get clean'.

I also get this error when trying to copy items to my desktop. I can copy files to the hard drive itself via Places - Computer. How would I go about pointing the updater, and the desktop, to use the hard drive space available, 60+gbs? And what exactly is this / drive that it is attempting to use?

Thanks for any help, this is my first time attempting to use ubuntu so please bear with me and my newb questions...

When you "split" the hard drive, how much space did you allot toward the partition (or, as you've termed it, the "split") that you installed Ubuntu onto? Perhaps the size of the partition you created for Ubuntu simply wasn't big enough.

The / directory is the root directory. All other directories follow from this root directory (including media drives such as usb sticks, or cdrom drives, which are usually mounted in /media or /mnt directories.)

Enter the command "df" in your terminal (or console) and see what it says. This will tell you how much space is being used, and is available, for your Linux partition. If your Windows partition (aka drive) is also mounted, then this command will also tell you how much space is being used, and is available, for your Windows partition (I'm guessing that most of the "60+gbs" you refer to is in the Windows partition).

Assuming this is the case, you could increase your Linux partition with tool called GParted, available for install with Synaptic (or, on the command line, "sudo apt-get install gparted"). You could temporarily remove a large application like OpenOffice.org to make room for GParted (and then reinstall OpenOffice.org later). Or you could get the GParted LiveCD from http://gparted.sourceforge.net via your Windows computer, and then use this to resize the partition.

Ok, I got gparted. I see what the problem is now. The root is a 2.33 gb partition, and the partition I thought would be the linux root was not formatted at all. The NTSF partition is 90gb, which is the one I was seeing in the computer browser. I guess I just misinterpreted the linux partition screen. I am now resizing and moving the partitions to grow the Linux root partition.

Thanks for the help.

I have the same problem - but with a netbook. I have found the 2.33 Gb Ubuntu partition (plus the swap partition). I have downloaded GParted. In Windows I have reduced the size of the XP primary partition that holds data. The unallocated space is sitting next to the extended partition that holds linux.
However I don't know how to extend the linux partition. The GParted help file tells me to highlight the partition and click on resize - but the resize button is greyed out.
I have 65MB spare in the Ubuntu partition, 165MB of updates waiting to be loaded, and 50GB of unallocated space. Can anyone help me synthesising these elements. Thanks in advance.

Start by logging in as root at the cmd line and run

fdisk -l

df -h


and post the results.