I recently obtained a new computer from my brother, and after putting the old one away (which had Ubuntu on it), I began the search for my disk. I found it, and installed Ubuntu, but I did something in the partitions, as the Linux partition now has 3.3 GB of space, thus being full from the start.

What I did was pick the option to manage the partitions manually, as I didn't want to use the whole HD (too many important things on Windows), and when I hit "use largest available space" and slid the slider on the partition bar (or didn't), it kept coming up with errors. So I edited the partitions manually.

It's roughly a 120 GB HD, and I separated it into four partitions: one 50 GB one (with Windows on it), one 70 GB one, one 7 MB one for swap space, and then the root file system.

I think what I did wrong was the 3 GB one; and now I'm guessing that the root filesystem was the partition Linux was installed on, which I had forgotten since my first install.

Is there anything I can do short of reinstalling?

Hi, welcome to LQ!

I don't see any initial reference of a "3 Gib" partition, and find the post a little confusing but here's two points:

To reinstall fresh, yes just reboot the machine and boot it from the CD again. Although, if you currently still have the LiveCD running, I don't see why you couldn't just run the installer from the desktop -- the last Ubuntu I installed had an installer icon on the desktop, maybe yours does not?

And also: Is that supposed to be a "7 Megabyte" or "7 Gigabyte" swap space? Whichever it is, these are both no good. One is too small to be useful, and the other is ridiculously large. If the computer is halfway modern, a swap space of 1 Gib should be plenty. If you're short on memory (like VERY short) you could up the swap to 2 Gib or even 3 or 4 if you *REALLY* want to, but 7 Gib is too much.

Sasha

It was 7 MB. The computer is from about 2003 or so; all I know is that it had XP installed on it when we got it. I have 512 MB of RAM.

Thank you very much for the welcome and the help. The CD isn't in now, but I could scour my room once more for it and then go through it again.

You will most likely find that using the CD again will make for the easiest way to adjust the partitions, if you need to, because they will all be unmounted (hopefully) or if they are mounted, you can UNmount them. It's easier to see all the partitions from an 'outside' view, so to speak.

ANd you have 512 Mib of ram, so my suggestion is that if you plan to do mainly *normal* stuff on the machine, like web surfing, maybe music, etc., then 1 Gib of swap would probably be good. If the laptop uses shared memory for the video, I'd up the swap to 1.5 or 2 Gib, give or take, especially if you will do any heavy-duty (memory intensive) stuff with the machine.

Best of success! If you run into trouble, hopefully the Ubuntu CD will allow you to be connected to the net while you have it booted, so you can post back any problems you run into,

Sasha