[SOLVED] Out of disk space :(

harsshal · 08-17-2009, 03:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fletch2k3

Im logged in under the root password. i logged off and logged back in, how do i get promted to enter my root password?

You should type

Code:

su -

Then you will be prompted to put root password.
But execute only those commands as root which you have been told here.

repo · 08-17-2009, 03:00 PM

Glad it worked.

Quote:

how can i lower the cache size?

in firefox

Quote:

edit=>preferences=>advanced network

first click to clear the cache, then lower it
Don't forget to disable or remove beagle
Beagle makes an index of all the files on the computer, so you can easely search, but it uses lots of space.

Quote:

so does this laptop seem like its a good one to use while in school?

yes, why not

fletch2k3 · 08-17-2009, 03:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by repo

Glad it worked.

in firefox

first click to clear the cache, then lower it
Don't forget to disable or remove beagle
Beagle makes an index of all the files on the computer, so you can easely search, but it uses lots of space.

yes, why not

ohh ok i thought it was something i had to type in the terminal. I havent been logged on long and my space is already decreasing. it went from 215M free/ 3G total to 210M free/ 3g total. And i havent done anything yet. And when it gets to 20M free it locked up.

i92guboj · 08-17-2009, 03:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fletch2k3

Im logged in under the root password. i logged off and logged back in, how do i get promted to enter my root password?

Nah, forget about that, I was under the impression that you were operating as an unprivileged user because root, in principle, should be able to read everything.

Please, try this variation of the previous command, I want to see the permissions and ownerships of the device nodes associated to your partitions:

Code:

ls -l /dev/sda*

I suspect that most of your disk space remains unaccessible for some reason that I can't yet understand.

I hope that the advices above by repo work and let you login as a regular user. But even then your disk space is that limited that sooner or later you are gonna have the same problem. That's why we need to find why your second partition isn't being mounted at all. You should also try to mount it manually, and see what does it says, this way:

Code:

cd /mnt
mkdir tmp
mount /dev/sda2 tmp

After that, let me know if it gives any error or not. If it doesn't tell you anything then the command should have suceeded, in that case "df | grep sda" should now show two lines.

On the contrary, if some error happens then we will need to investigate a bit more.

repo · 08-17-2009, 03:08 PM

Quote:

ohh ok i thought it was something i had to type in the terminal. I havent been logged on long and my space is already decreasing. it went from 215M free/ 3G total to 210M free/ 3g total. And i havent done anything yet. And when it gets to 20M free it locked up.

Disable or uninstall beagle.

fletch2k3 · 08-17-2009, 03:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by i92guboj

Nah, forget about that, I was under the impression that you were operating as an unprivileged user because root, in principle, should be able to read everything.

Please, try this variation of the previous command, I want to see the permissions and ownerships of the device nodes associated to your partitions:

Code:

ls -l /dev/sda*

I suspect that most of your disk space remains unaccessible for some reason that I can't yet understand.

I hope that the advices above by repo work and let you login as a regular user. But even then your disk space is that limited that sooner or later you are gonna have the same problem. That's why we need to find why your second partition isn't being mounted at all. You should also try to mount it manually, and see what does it says, this way:

Code:

cd /mnt
mkdir tmp
mount /dev/sda2 tmp

After that, let me know if it gives any error or not. If it doesn't tell you anything then the command should have suceeded, in that case "df | grep sda" should now show two lines.

On the contrary, if some error happens then we will need to investigate a bit more.

ok ill give it a try. something popped up. it says Unlock Keyring. The application 'nm-applet'(/usr/bin/nm-applet) wants access to the default keyring, but its locked. and it gives me a space for a password but none that i use worked. what is that?

i92guboj · 08-17-2009, 03:21 PM

The keyring is a kind of wallet that's specific to the desktop you use. There many apps store passwords for many things, and when one of these apps need to access a password it asks the keyring. That way the keyring can memorize thousands of passwords for you, and you only have to remember one (the one for your keyring). One password to rule them all

I have no idea why that pops up now though. My guess is that this nm-applet thing is a network manager applet of some kind. There's no way to unlock the keyring if you don't know the central password to it though, which might bring you some complications later, or not. It all depends if you use it to store some password that you really need (if not you can just delete your user account and create a new one at some point to get rid of all the crap).

repo · 08-17-2009, 03:22 PM

Quote:

ok ill give it a try. something popped up. it says Unlock Keyring. The application 'nm-applet'(/usr/bin/nm-applet) wants access to the default keyring, but its locked. and it gives me a space for a password but none that i use worked. what is that?

try to hit enter, with no password

fletch2k3 · 08-17-2009, 03:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by i92guboj

Nah, forget about that, I was under the impression that you were operating as an unprivileged user because root, in principle, should be able to read everything.

Please, try this variation of the previous command, I want to see the permissions and ownerships of the device nodes associated to your partitions:

Code:

ls -l /dev/sda*

I suspect that most of your disk space remains unaccessible for some reason that I can't yet understand.

I hope that the advices above by repo work and let you login as a regular user. But even then your disk space is that limited that sooner or later you are gonna have the same problem. That's why we need to find why your second partition isn't being mounted at all. You should also try to mount it manually, and see what does it says, this way:

Code:

cd /mnt
mkdir tmp
mount /dev/sda2 tmp

After that, let me know if it gives any error or not. If it doesn't tell you anything then the command should have suceeded, in that case "df | grep sda" should now show two lines.

On the contrary, if some error happens then we will need to investigate a bit more.

ok i did the first one and it came up

[code]
brw-r----- 1root disk 8, 0 2009-08-17 8:42 /dev/sda
brw-r----- 1root disk 8, 1 2009-08-17 8:42 /dev/sda1
brw-r----- 1root disk 8, 2 2009-08-17 8:42 /dev/sda2

fletch2k3 · 08-17-2009, 03:33 PM

boy i hope you guys are getting paid for helping me for this long!! You guys rawk!!

OK good news! In the terminal when i was putting in the code for mount etc. it told me i needed to be logged in to do so. So i put in my root password and it gave me a # symbol. so i went back and entered # fdisk -l and this is what it gave me

[code]
Disk /dev/sda: 4009MB, 4009549824 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 487 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 406 487 658665 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dec/sda2 * 1 405 3253131 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

repo · 08-17-2009, 03:41 PM

Did you uninstalled beagle?
AFAIK this notebook has 120 GB hard disk.
http://h40059.www4.hp.com/hp2133/
I wonder why it only reports 3 GB

fletch2k3 · 08-17-2009, 03:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by repo

try to hit enter, with no password

It just popped back up with the same prompt.

repo · 08-17-2009, 03:42 PM

try the root password

fletch2k3 · 08-17-2009, 03:43 PM

when i enter file -s /dev/sda2 now it brings up

Code:

 
x86 boot sector, code offset 0x48

i92guboj · 08-17-2009, 03:46 PM

Ok, it's really really strange. But indeed, your hard disk has only 4gb

Very limited storage capacity for nowadays standards. It's divided into two portions, one of which is a swap disk, which is used to emulate ram. So, only a bit more than 3 gigabytes is actually used for storage. So, besides cleaning it, there's very little you can do. Maybe installing a small distro... You can as well use an external drive to store additional data. Still you will have to be vigilant about beagle and the firefox cache, and whatever else is filling your drive.

It could worth to check the manuals if you have them. Because it seems strange to me that such a machine comes with such a little disk. Maybe someone has manipulated the machine, or maybe there's something strange going on and the disk is really bigger than your OS can detect. I'll think a bit about this and see if I can throw some light on the issue.