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Tony Littlejohn 02-06-2009 02:59 AM

KDE will not start /tmp out of disk space
 
Mandriva 2008.0

I tried to start Mandriva 2008.0 KDE and was met by a system message saying that KDE could not start because the

/tmp was out of disk space.

This probably explains the sluggishness of Mandriva 2008.0 over the past few weeks.

Any idea on how to resolve this problem?

I am xurrently accessing my system through a Mandriva ONE LIve CD but would like to get back to my normal 2008.0 Powerpack installation.

Many thanks in advance,

Tony

GlennsPref 02-06-2009 03:49 AM

Hi, how ya goin'?
<edit> as far as I remember, nothing in tmp will be used after a reboot. sorry I did not say b4.</edit>

From that live cd can you access the drive rw?

If so, (edit, it's probably /mnt/...)

cd /tmp

rm *.* all the files from /tmp

reboot.

It's possible that your system has out grown it's space.

If you have only one Linux partition and a swap partition on your system.

One way I get around this is I set aside a partition for tmp.

(as well as many others. the most important /home)

This way I have good separation if I need to reinstall the os,

I won't loose any personal data, and settings. (I tend to do that a lot, lol)

rm --help
Code:

glenn@GamesBox:~/bin$ rm --help                                                                                                (06-02 19:47)
Usage: rm [OPTION]... FILE...                                                                                                               
Remove (unlink) the FILE(s).

  -f, --force          ignore nonexistent files, never prompt
  -i                    prompt before every removal
  -I                    prompt once before removing more than three files, or
                          when removing recursively.  Less intrusive than -i,
                          while still giving protection against most mistakes
      --interactive[=WHEN]  prompt according to WHEN: never, once (-I), or
                          always (-i).  Without WHEN, prompt always
      --one-file-system  when removing a hierarchy recursively, skip any
                          directory that is on a file system different from
                          that of the corresponding command line argument
      --no-preserve-root  do not treat `/' specially
      --preserve-root  do not remove `/' (default)
  -r, -R, --recursive  remove directories and their contents recursively
  -v, --verbose        explain what is being done
      --help    display this help and exit
      --version  output version information and exit

By default, rm does not remove directories.  Use the --recursive (-r or -R)
option to remove each listed directory, too, along with all of its contents.

To remove a file whose name starts with a `-', for example `-foo',
use one of these commands:
  rm -- -foo

  rm ./-foo

Note that if you use rm to remove a file, it is usually possible to recover
the contents of that file.  If you want more assurance that the contents are
truly unrecoverable, consider using shred.

Report bugs to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org>.
glenn@GamesBox:~/bin$

cheers, Glenn

Tony Littlejohn 02-06-2009 05:15 AM

Hello to you Glenn, I already have the drive partitioned into hda5, Swap and Home. The Hda5 is 7Gb and the /tmp directory has only two files. The total Linux Partition drive space is 83Gb with another 23Gb set aside for Windows.

Anyway, I can access the hda5 as root by using the Mandriva ONE 2008.0 cd. You get to root by just hitting the Enter key when the PASSWORD request appears. Very Scarey! I think.

Still, I will give rm *.* a go and see what happens after which I will try to increase the hda5 to say 10Gb.

Thanks again,

Tony

jkerr82508 02-06-2009 05:29 AM

If you copied the contents of the installation DVD to your hard drive during installation, then that can cause / to fill up very quickly. (The default partition size created is too small.) You can delete the DVD contents from /var/ftp/ to free up 4gig on /. Then remove the DVD sources in the media manager and set up on-line sources.

Jim

GlennsPref 02-06-2009 05:41 PM

Great point Jim, I should have thought of that too.

Tony, you need to be very careful, double check the directories,

pwd (reports present/current working dir.)

before committing any changes, especially with a live cd.

Regards, Glenn

My /tmp partition is only 1.5gig.

This makes it difficult to erase files larger than 1.5gig, but I don't do that very often.

ernie 02-07-2009 01:22 PM

Another place to check is your $USER/tmp directory. KDE tends to keep all the crash reports for any KDE app you have used as well as various other data (most - if not all -of which is not needed after a reboot). I go into my ~/tmp directory about once a month to clean all the older stuff out. At some point (as in when I have the time) I intend to create a clean up script to manage all this automatically (in a cron job) since it is always the same type of debris I am removing (e.g.: a repetitive task). When (and if) I get it finished, I'll post the script on my LQ blog.

HTH,

Tony Littlejohn 02-08-2009 10:50 AM

Thanks to everyone for their advice. Unfortunately I deleted files in /tmp and the result after rebooting that I could no longer get beyond the boot splash .

As my PowerPack 2008.0 DVD is in Paris and I am in the middle of France (house renovation, what else) I was getting desperate for a bootable Mandriva DVD/Cd. I came across Mandriva ONE LIVE 2009 and decided to install that. I managed to make a backup on an external drive and then proceeded to install MDV2009. I took the opportunity to increase the size of hda5 from 7Gb to over 10Gb and of the swap from 3Gb to 4Gb. The install went well but of course there was no working Skype - something which is a must for me.

Then last night while sorting through some bits and bobs, I came across a French Mandriva magazine with a French Mandriva 2998.0 Free attached. Btw, I am overwhelmed by Linux magazines in France, even the smallest newsagent carries Linux mags; 5+ titles.

So now I am back to Mandriva 2008.0 with everything working and no DVD copied over to hda5.

Thanks again to you all. I have pick up a few tips from your replies.

Meanwhile, I am looking forrward to testing the Spring Mdv 2009 and hope that it will be far more stable than the 2009.0 edition

jschiwal 02-08-2009 10:58 AM

FYI. When I used Mandrake linux, you could change a setting in MCC that would clear out /tmp between boots. That will keep it clean. I don't know if it does it when booting up or shutting down.

If you do it manually, log out as a regular user and log in (in terminal mode) as root. CD to the /tmp directory and use the find command to locate all files not owned by root.

Code:

find /tmp -not -user root -type f -execdir rm -v '{}' \;
---
If /tmp doesn't have it's own partition, then while the error occurred while trying to write to /tmp, the cause is that the root directory (/) is full. On my desktop, I've had the ~/.xsession-errors grow incredibly large in size, and deleting it fixed the problem. I did get an advanced warning however before it became critical.

Tony Littlejohn 02-11-2009 02:40 AM

Many jshiwal thanks for that advice. I will copy it to my Linux HowTo's folder - whehter I will be able to access should the same problem reoccur.

I found this article on the Linux Today website and though it is written for Ubuntu it probably applies to Mandriva.

http://tech.shantanugoel.com/2009/02...n-problem.html

So, perhaps we have at least two solutions to the same problem.

Tony

jolphil 02-15-2009 07:08 AM

To add to jschiwal's comment:

Quote:

FYI. When I used Mandrake linux, you could change a setting in MCC that would clear out /tmp
Open MCC-Boot-advanced and place a checkmark enable tmp auto clean..
jolphil:twocents:

KenJackson 02-15-2009 01:31 PM

FWIW, when I install Linux these days for a personal system, I only create three partitions: /, /home and swap. All others (/usr, /root, /tmp, /boot, /var) get automatically created as directories in /.

The minor disadvantages of that are trivial compared to the advantage of not having to guess what relative sizes I'll need.

In fact, sometimes I only create / and swap. Although keeping personal work separate from system files does offer a little more flexible when upgrading.

PTrenholme 02-15-2009 01:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KenJackson (Post 3444482)
[...]Although keeping personal work separate from system files does offer a little more flexible when upgrading.

I don't understand your comment about "more flexibility." Could you offer more details?

My understanding is that, for most distributions, an upgrade will not touch anything in /home, and the only "advantage" in a separate /home partition is that you've imposed an arbitrary size limit on the amount of space available to your users. (Application-specific hidden files may be changed when an upgraded application is started by a user, but that's normal and expected.)

If you have some need to limit user disk space usage, it is probably easier and more flexible to establish per-user disk quotas.

So, how does putting everything in "/" limit one's flexibility?

KenJackson 02-15-2009 02:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PTrenholme (Post 3444508)
I don't understand your comment about "more flexibility." Could you offer more details?

My understanding is that, for most distributions, an upgrade will not touch anything in /home, and the only "advantage" in a separate /home partition is that you've imposed an arbitrary size limit on the amount of space available to your users.

The personal systems that I referenced only have one user so there is no point limiting the user.

But you said the answer yourself: an upgrade will not touch anything in home.

If the advantage to you is so small that you don't see it, then don't do it. I'm not far behind you.

jkerr82508 02-15-2009 03:03 PM

If you have a separate /home you can do a clean install and keep all of your existing personal settings, by opting not to format /home.

Jim

PTrenholme 02-15-2009 09:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jkerr82508 (Post 3444562)
If you have a separate /home you can do a clean install and keep all of your existing personal settings, by opting not to format /home.

Jim

Well, yes, but wouldn't it be easier to just restore /home from your backup files?

Doing it your way seems to require creating a user without a home directory, or a dummy one, changing /etc/fstab on the new installation to mount your old /home, deleting the /home that the new installation will have created, and testing all the new installation's applications with the older /home.

Does this really seem either easy or flexible?


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