Lots of thanks in advance if anyone can help me with my Mandriva Spring 2007 Free installation problem.

I tried to upgrade Mandriva 2006 -> Mandriva Spring 2007 Free

1. First the upgrade-installation was cancelled because I had not enough free disc space.

2. Because it seemed that there was not a lot of space that was needed, I removed certain files & programs and tried again (upgrade to the Mandriva 2007). The installation proceeded, but now I got a message that there was no space left at all. It wasn't possible to cancel the installation process.

3. However I started the system and the system that started was Mandriva 2007 (so it was there, at least partially). I got no graphical interface. Then I tried to upgrade the this bad installation, and I got this error message:

"getAndSaveFile (/mnt/var/lib/urpmi/hdlist. "Mandriva Linux - 2007.1 (Free) - Installer.cz):."

So what should I do?

A: Should I try to find this hdlist-file and copy it to that place? In my "/mnt"-folder there is no such folder as "var".

B: Is there a specific way or commands that could fix the system?

C: Should I try to have more free space? How can I do it?

D: Where I can see in which device the linux system is now installed? I have four quite small hard discs in my computer, so it is not a very new one. There should be one disc dedicated to Linux (maybe home-folder is also there?).

E Should I try a smaller distribution? I know it should be easy to install Mandriva One, but is Mandriva One installed on a hard disc smaller than Mandriva 2007, or would this installation (One) be the same as Mandriva 2007.

I would be very pleased if anyone could help me. And I have to say that I completely forgot to back up my system... (stupid, but I should have all the documents etc. safe).

Note: I've been using Linux for several years, but I can almost only use the graphical interface. I've just been doing normal stuff: writing, surfing, image editing etc., and I can't really use Linux commands (I know just few: pwd, cd, cp, rm, rmdir...). So if I have to write Linux commands to solve my problems I would really appreciate if you could be quite specific in your answers.

Thank you!

I have had problems installing 2007 spring too. But it is now working well. But that does not mean I can solve your problem but I'll try and help.

I have never found that updating work all to well, I always do a fresh install.

I found that the ios images didn't write to disk very well, so if you burnt your own install disks form iso's try doing it again at 1 speed, this helped me a bit.

Did you copy the contents of the CD's to your hard drive, if so try again and don't do this, it will save a lot of space. I have plenty of space on mine, but could not copy them for some unknown reason.

I had to attempt the install a few times before I got one that worked. I did get an error message, but I can't remember what it was not, but it all works fine.

have you been to http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/ to update your source, may solve the hdlist bit. Just follow the instructions on the web site.

Are all your hard drives the same size, if not this may help work out which one it has installed to. If they are IDE hard drives it will have probably installed to your primary master drive. if sata it will be device sda. How much disk space are you allowing?

If you are in a hurry Mandriva one spring is not a bad choice, but I would be inclined to solve the problem with 2007 spring.

If you goto menu->system->monitoring->kdiskfree it should give you information about what is on what partition/hard drive with disk sizes.

Let me know what you find and more about your computer and what you have done and I'll try and help further.

You didn't say how much space you have for the / drive.

I alway create a 10-15g partition for the / because I load every possibly game for the kids.

Like Richie55 said don't copy the cd/dvd's to the hard drive they take over 3 gig of space & it on your / partition.

Ok, now I'm back. Thanks a lot for your responses, Richie55 and courtrrb.

I found out that with "df"-command I could find out how much disk space I have on each disk.

My system seems to be on hde-disk. At least the home directory is on hde6, which has 20G free space (only 2,5G used). So that partition has a size of 22G.

The disc hde has another partition, hde1. It's size is 5,8G and there is no available space at all! My "/"-directory is on hde1-partition. So this is where my problem seems to be?

At hde there are no other partitions than those two, hde1 and hde6. Should it have more partitions? At least "df"-command didn't give information of other partitions there.

Is it possible safely increase the size of hde1? Perhaps with "fdisk"-command?

I don't have bigger disk than hde (I have another disk same size, but I can't install the Linux-system there). Other disks are smaller. At hda I have old windows which I never use. I think my Lilo is there too.

Actually I did copy the installation dvd to my hard drive, but to another drive my system is (at least I did not copy it to hde-disk). I can remove the installation files because I have them on my dvd. But I think that would not do any help.

Lots of thanks for your help!

Yep that were you problem lies. Depending on the packages you selected that ain't enough. If you see what I posted before
10-15gig just for the root partitons. Even my server that has a default install of 11G & uses 5 Fig it-self. The best way to increase the disk space on your root partition is to backup your home partition to dvd & do a new clean install. Clear the hd & setup the partition as before but make sure that you give a minimum of 10g to the / partition.

Yes, thank you. I think I have to do what you say. And it is good to do a clean install sometimes, not just an uppgrade.

Then I'll create user and copy the content of the old home directory to the new one - that should put mails & other stuff and program settings in place, shouldn't it?

Thanks again for your fast response!

That should do it unless your running some type of mail server.
If all you use is the standard mail program downloading from your ISP you will be fine.
These are all contained in your home directories.
I'm on my fourth hd now (I keep getting bigger ones) I yet to lose any mail or address books.

Thanks a lot. And you are right: I only use mail as a client and I won't use my Linux as a server, just a workstation.

As you suggested I did a fresh install of Mandriva 2007 Spring. All went well. I didn't have time to copy the content of the old home directory to the new one yet, but the system works fine.

However, in the beginning of the installation process, I chose the fresh install option "erase disk" (or something like that) and so I could not manually fix the size of the root partition later. I thought that the "erase disc" option would let me specify the size of the root partition but it didn't. If I remember right, it is now something like 7G or a slightly above, but anyway less than 10.

I still might follow your advices and give more space to the root partition (and so I have to do the installation again?). I just have to pick the right alternative in the beginning ("custom install").

I don't know if it is possible to modify the size of the root partition afterwards, without losing the system. Then, I suppose, I should have to unmount the root partition, which maybe means that I would have to start Linux from a disk, run it from a console etc., which is a bit too complicated for me (if it is not possible to use a graphical interface to do it (was it drakdisk, I don't have my Linux here)).

But anyway, the possibility of resizing the root partition afterwards is just "an academic" question ("nice to know"), reinstalling the system is fine for me. The system I have now is just a clean install, no modifications, and so it would be easy to do it once more (well, it'll take two to three hours again...).

(EDIT: I found out that it is possible to resize the root partition, but I think I'll do a new fresh install instead.)

And of course, I must upload the updates of the system and programs, as Richie told above. The 2007 Spring is at least six months old.

Thank you again!