Hard Drive space allocation

Sheesh · 02-08-2006, 10:28 AM

I was wondering if there was someone who could help me out. I am still pretty new with Linux, but I am learning fairly quickly.

The problem is that I noticed that I was running out of room on my drive, so I deleted a couple of large directories. Now it is reporting that the drive is still almost full.

I read a post about this somewhere else, but it didn't help me at all. I did read about the df command and this is what I got:

sheesh@linux:~> df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hde2 57G 54G 3.0G 95% /
tmpfs 506M 12K 506M 1% /dev/shm
/dev/hda1 150G 137G 13G 92% /windows/C
sheesh@linux:~> df -i
Filesystem Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on
/dev/hde2 0 0 0 - /
tmpfs 129492 2 129490 1% /dev/shm
/dev/hda1 267456 157736 109720 59% /windows/C

I read something about lsof, but I don't even know how to use it properly. The directories I deleted were /usr/share/xmame/roms and /usr/share/xmame/samples. I already had these on another drive so I deleted them off of this drive. As you can see I still have 33% of my drive open from these files being deleted.

Thanks.

satinet · 02-08-2006, 10:38 AM

it seems like your / directory is very full. you must have a lot in there!

is it video or something? i would recommend creating a seperate /home partition.

anyway....

if you want to see where space is going you can use:

cd /
du -x |sort -nr

this will show you the largest files/directories on your system.

you might want to pipe this into 'less' or divert (>) the output to a text file....

Sheesh · 02-08-2006, 10:51 AM

The problem is not with files that are on the drive because I already deleted the files. The problem is that although the folder is listed as empty, it is still taking up all the space on my drive.

UK MAdMaN · 02-09-2006, 06:09 AM

Are you sure it's actually deleted, and not just moved to a trash/recycle bin?

Sheesh · 02-09-2006, 12:21 PM

I am sure it isn't in the trash. I emptied it ass soon as I was finished. It says No Items - No Files - No Folders. It has been deleted and id nowhere to be found on my drive. It is still allocating the file size on my drive.

Sheesh · 02-10-2006, 05:56 PM

Anyone?

I really don't want to format and reinstall because of a hard drive allocation problem.

J.W. · 02-10-2006, 11:57 PM

Try running this command, which breaks down how much space each directory is using

Code:

du -h --max-depth=1

See the man pages for "du" for more info. It won't solve the allocation problem but at least you'll be able to see where your space is going

Sheesh · 02-11-2006, 02:06 AM

It doesn't really show where the huge amount of hard drive space is being allocated. Like I said the files that I deleted were in one directory. This directory took up well over 40 GB of space. I deleted the files in that directory and the system reports that it is gone and the directory only takes a few k of space, but then it says my drive is almost full still. That hasn't gone down at all. Here is what I get when I run that command.

Code:

sheesh@linux:~> du -h --max-depth=1
12K     ./.qt
0       ./bin
25M     ./.asc
1.8G    ./.kde
226M    ./Documents
618K    ./.gaim
121K    ./.java
8.0K    ./.mcop
20K     ./.sane
4.0K    ./.skel
56K     ./.xine
14M     ./gtk+-1.2.9
6.7M    ./gkrellm-2.2.7
4.0K    ./.gnome2_private
24K     ./lists
1.2M    ./hotwayd-0.8.4
0       ./smb4k
0       ./.config
8.0K    ./.mplayer
12K     ./.dvdcss
58M     ./.mozilla
12K     ./.gconfd
448M    ./Photos
712K    ./.gnome2
20K     ./.gxmame
4.5M    ./gxmame-0.34b
4.0K    ./.gstreamer-0.8
38M     ./MPlayer-1.0pre7try2
8.0K    ./.lgames
1.6M    ./.kxmame
6.8M    ./smb4k-0.6.7
640K    ./.gimp-2.2
16K     ./.pingus
4.0K    ./public_html
16K     ./.tvtime
761K    ./Desktop
4.0K    ./.xemacs
8.0K    ./.nautilus
2.4M    ./grustibus-0.43
14M     ./folding
1.2M    ./.evolution
483M    ./.thunderbird
72K     ./images
16M     ./vnc_unixsrc
30M     ./.thumbnails
64K     ./.gkrellm2
0       ./.gnome_private
4.0K    ./.Skype
108K    ./.gconf
4.0K    ./.fonts
20K     ./.gnome
24K     ./.gnupg
0       ./.jamin
8.0K    ./.local
763K    ./.opera
201K    ./.xmame
1.9M    ./.yast2
14M     ./kxmame-1.91
0       ./.mactor.temp
102M    ./xmame-0.103
12K     ./.macromedia
24K     ./.zapping
177K    ./classes
3.3G    .
sheesh@linux:~>

J.W. · 02-11-2006, 02:20 AM

It looks like you are running the command from your "regular user" home directory. Go to the root ('/') directory and run it from there. Also, please post the results of

Code:

fdisk -l

Note that's a lowercase "L"

Sheesh · 02-11-2006, 11:31 AM

Here is what I get from the fdisk -l command:

Code:

linux:/home/sheesh # fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1       19457   156288321    7  HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/hde: 61.4 GB, 61492838400 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7476 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hde1               1         131     1052226   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hde2             132        7476    58998712+  83  Linux

Disk /dev/hdg: 20.5 GB, 20525137920 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2495 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdg1   *           1         764     6136798+  83  Linux
/dev/hdg2             765        2495    13904257+   5  Extended
/dev/hdg5             765         904     1124518+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hdg6             905        2495    12779676   83  Linux

Sheesh · 02-11-2006, 11:33 AM

And here is the other command run as root:

Code:

linux:/home/sheesh # du -h --max-depth=1
12K     ./.qt
0       ./bin
25M     ./.asc
1.8G    ./.kde
2.5M    ./Documents
618K    ./.gaim
121K    ./.java
8.0K    ./.mcop
20K     ./.sane
4.0K    ./.skel
56K     ./.xine
14M     ./gtk+-1.2.9
6.7M    ./gkrellm-2.2.7
4.0K    ./.gnome2_private
24K     ./lists
1.2M    ./hotwayd-0.8.4
0       ./smb4k
0       ./.config
8.0K    ./.mplayer
12K     ./.dvdcss
58M     ./.mozilla
12K     ./.gconfd
448M    ./Photos
712K    ./.gnome2
20K     ./.gxmame
4.5M    ./gxmame-0.34b
4.0K    ./.gstreamer-0.8
38M     ./MPlayer-1.0pre7try2
8.0K    ./.lgames
1.6M    ./.kxmame
6.8M    ./smb4k-0.6.7
640K    ./.gimp-2.2
16K     ./.pingus
4.0K    ./public_html
16K     ./.tvtime
761K    ./Desktop
4.0K    ./.xemacs
8.0K    ./.nautilus
2.4M    ./grustibus-0.43
14M     ./folding
1.2M    ./.evolution
31M     ./.thunderbird
72K     ./images
16M     ./vnc_unixsrc
30M     ./.thumbnails
64K     ./.gkrellm2
0       ./.gnome_private
4.0K    ./.Skype
108K    ./.gconf
4.0K    ./.fonts
20K     ./.gnome
24K     ./.gnupg
0       ./.jamin
8.0K    ./.local
763K    ./.opera
201K    ./.xmame
1.9M    ./.yast2
14M     ./kxmame-1.91
0       ./.mactor.temp
102M    ./xmame-0.103
12K     ./.macromedia
24K     ./.zapping
177K    ./classes
2.6G    .

J.W. · 02-12-2006, 10:06 PM

You are still running the command from your home directory, which in your case is /home/sheesh

Run it from your root directory. To get there

Code:

cd /

Then "du -h --max-depth=1"

Sheesh · 02-12-2006, 11:59 PM

Oops.. I thought you meant to log in as root and do it.

Here is what I get run as root, in root.

Code:

linux:/home/sheesh # cd /
linux:/ # du -h --max-depth=1
6.4M    ./bin
160K    ./dev
64M     ./etc
167M    ./lib
0       ./mnt
1.8G    ./opt
1.3M    ./srv
417M    ./tmp
0       ./sys
357M    ./var
4.3G    ./usr
20M     ./boot
868M    ./home
899M    ./proc
12M     ./sbin
46G     ./root
0       ./.xine
0       ./data1
0       ./data2
du: `./media/floppy': No medium found
0       ./media
0       ./subdomain
137G    ./windows
0       ./lost+found
191G    .
linux:/ #

satinet · 02-13-2006, 02:13 AM

obvoiously you have too much in /root /tmp & /usr/. not sure why /proc is so big.

anyway, go into each and type

'du -x | sort -nr | less'. Then you can see where the large files are and delete as appropriate.

Sheesh · 02-13-2006, 10:01 AM

So I found out what the problem was. I had files locked in the trash that I could not see until I went to the hidden files areas as root. the regular trash bin was saying it was empty, but when I went to root/.local/share/Trash/files I could see all the huge files that I deleted before. They were a complete set of MAME Roms along with the sound samples. They took up 43GB of space. I had to shift+delete them to get rid of them. They are all gone now and I went from 94% full down to 14% full.

Code:

linux:/ # df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hde2              57G  7.6G   49G  14% /
tmpfs                 506M   12K  506M   1% /dev/shm
/dev/hda1             150G  137G   13G  92% /windows/C

Thanks again everyone! You have all helped me solve every one of my problems that I had. Keep up the excellent work and thanks once again!