Fedora update,/var,display problem.

Branko0611 · 03-27-2014, 05:42 PM

Hello everyone.
Just installed Fedora 20(KDE) and the system informed me that I should get updates.

I checked everything and accepted to install additional ones.It got to a certain point(around 10%) and it failed because of the low space in /var(Total space 1024mb).

I'm aware now that I should have probably set the /var to be larger, but can't the yum resolve the issue and do the downloading and installing step by step?
And I can't get the space cleaned with the "yum clean" command which some forum guys said should fix the problem.

Should I do complete reinstall and set /var larger, or there's some better way to deal with this, thanks.(I also get the error when I try to open display configuration{Executable: kcmshell4 PID: 1863 Signal: Bus error (7) Time: 03/27/14 06:18:15 PM}, I'm not sure if it's and issue that update would fix).

John VV · 03-27-2014, 07:50 PM

you really should not have made a /var partition

fedora defaults to using LVM for the drive
-- it is normally best to let the installer set things up

or
if a manual partition set up , something like
"/boot" 500 meg
"/" 12 to 20 gig
"/home" 20 gig or so
and a 2 gig "SWAP" partition

your best bet is to reinstall after reformatting the drive

syg00 · 03-27-2014, 11:16 PM

On this reasonably quiet F20 laptop /var is 1.5G - and yes, the yum cache occupies half of that.
If it was me and the space existed in the root partition I'd just copy /var across as-is, and get rid of the separate mount. Make sure it reboots, and clean up the partition later. Depends how comfortable you are working in single user mode.
Pointless busting out lots of partitions if it's going to cause pain.

Don't know if I can agree with this tho'

Quote:

-- it is normally best to let the installer set things up

Been many years since I've trusted my systems to the installers.

rknichols · 03-28-2014, 09:12 AM

If you would run the following commands and post the output, someone might be able to suggest a way out short of reinstalling.

Code:

lvs
pvs
fdisk -l /dev/sd?
df -h -x tmpfs

Those first two commands are relevant only if you are using LVM, and will just report "No volumes found" if you are not.

Branko0611 · 03-28-2014, 09:49 AM

Here

Code:

[root@localhost **]# lvs
  No volume groups found
[root@localhost **]# pvs
[root@localhost **]# fdisk -l /dev/sda

Disk /dev/sda: 465.8 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x3b99ac7f

Device    Boot     Start       End    Blocks  Id System
/dev/sda1 *         2048  92162047  46080000   7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2       92162048 944824319 426331136   7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3      944824320 945848319    512000  83 Linux
/dev/sda4      945848320 976773119  15462400   5 Extended
/dev/sda5      945850368 970426367  12288000  83 Linux
/dev/sda6      970428416 972525567   1048576  83 Linux
/dev/sda7      972527616 976773119   2122752  82 Linux swap / Solaris

[root@localhost **]# df -h -x tmpfs
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda5        12G  2.9G  8.0G  27% /
devtmpfs        948M     0  948M   0% /dev
/dev/sda3       477M   80M  368M  18% /boot
/dev/sda6       976M  921M     0 100% /var

John VV · 03-28-2014, 11:54 AM

Quote:

/dev/sda6 976M 921M 0 100% /var

I would reinstall

also 12 gig for
"/dev/sda5 12G 2.9G 8.0G 27% /"
with /home also in there is a bit to small
now ,12 gig for / with about another 12 or so gig for /home would do

rknichols · 03-28-2014, 12:37 PM

I agree on the reinstall. You just don't have enough space allocated for a full Linux distribution like Fedora.

I would shrink the sda2 NTFS partition by at least 20GB and give at least half of that to /var. Your root filesystem, which includes /usr and /home, is also too small. Yes, I know that the fedoraproject.org homepage has a 10GB recommended minimum for disk storage, but that is way too small for anything but a minimal installation that you are not going to use for much.

Whether to have a separate /home is not always an easy decision. Having separate partitions fragments your free space, and that can be a problem if you're trying to restrict the total disk space allocated to Linux. Personally, I make /home share the same partition as /var by creating /var/home and bind-mounting that on /home, but that isn't a realistic solution for a beginner. In your case, I recommend leaving /home as part of your (enlarged) root filesystem.