I am trying to do $ pkgadd -d gcc-3.3.2-sol9-sparc-local but the solaris pkgadd reports out of space on disk.

I am assuming that it writes files to /var temporarily, and eventually /usr, which are both just mounted on the /.

My question then is how can I make the / filesystem bigger without losing data or reinstalilng solaris from scatch?

Many thanks.

You would need to repartition your drives using a partition tool, etc.

You could however check your /var directory for large log files that you can clean out possible and check your /tmp directory for temp files you can clear out to temporarily gain some more space, etc.

I thought as much.

Can you recommend a partitioning tool to use?

I basically need to enlarge the existing /, which lives on /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s1 so that it fills that disk.

You could also use a different partition mounted as /usr or /var, to free up some space. If you have a spare partition available (or unused space that could be made into one), format it, mount it in a temporary location like /tmpusr or /tmpvar, copy (recursively with '-R', along with '-dp' to preserve symbolic links and such) everything from /usr or /var to it. Then you can clear off the space from your root partition, and mount the new partition as /usr or /var. I don't know how precisely that'd work in Solaris, but it should be feasible.

If you don't have a spare partition lying around, though, the best thing would be as suggested above; find some way to clean off old logs and stuff. Barring that, you may have to use a partition resizing program like GNU parted.

It's because of this possibility that I left a big chunk (30GB) of a new 80GB hard drive unpartitioned. Kind of a waste, since I can't use the space, but that way, if I run out of room later, I can always make a new partition in the unused space without worrying about losing data on an existing partition.

Thanks for the reply, all sorted now!