Read only on SDHC EEEXubuntu install
 

Ok guys, here goes...

I installed eeexubuntu on my EEE2g surf. I installed it with a pen drive on to my 8gb SDHC card. This is the method i used...


1. Insert you eeeXubuntu CD and start up.

2. When the OS has started up, make sure that network is working. Try and surf or so. If it does not work, then go to the Network Manager and enable it so it works.

3. Start the installation program.

4. Choose "No localization" in the first screen. This is important, since it else will fill up with a lot of language support. Click "Next".

5. When you get to choosing a partition for the install, you have to choose "Manuel".

6. Under partitioning make the following partitions:

A ext3 partition on the SSD internal harddrive. Mount it as "/". This is done by editing the newly made partition. Use all the space for this partition.
A swap partition on the SD card and set it to 256 MB. This can not be mounted.
A ext3 partition on the SD card, using the rest of the space available. Mount it as "/usr".

7. Continue the rest of the installation as you normally would.


Now that the install is done, i am running eeexubuntu. But my problem is i can't use the other 5.4 gbs of space on the SDHC. Here is what the permissions read in the folder from the sdhc...

Owner : root (root)
Access *greyed out/cant click* Read and Write
Group: root *greyed out/cant click*
Access: Read only (also cant click)
Others: Read only (also cant click)

I cant unmount the drive to mess with it obviously because the system is running off it. No one else seems to have the problem i am having, and ive used some other forums but they can't come up with anything. I hope i have come to the right place. Please help me write something on this card, i know 5 gbs isn't much, but i can't afford an external HD for a few more weeks, and 900 megs just isn't going to cut it.

Thanks in advance,
Chris

"i can't use the other 5.4 gbs of space on the SDHC" - what do you mean by 'the other'? The other as opposed to what? What directory did you quote the above permissions for? /usr ?

The other meaning there is 5.4gbs of free space left on the sdhc. The card is on the desktop, i open the folder for it, and thats where the permissions come from.

yes, /usr is the directory

What im getting at is part of the install seems to be on the 2 gig ssd, the rest is on the 8 gig SDHC. everytime i download something it saves to the ssd instead of the SDHC. i need to be able to save to the SDHC.

From what I can see in your first post (paragraph 6) during install you used up your sd card by creating 2 partitions on it - a swap partition and ext3 partition mounted under /usr.

If that's the case you cannot really use any of your SD card as a normal user. /usr is used to hold binaries, program libraries and other system staff and is owned by root. You are not supposed to store, say, music in there.

You need to reclaim some of the space - but then again for example on my laptop /usr is a few gigs size.

Simple way to take some space there would be creating a subdirectory (say /usr/my_downloads) - you'll need to do it as root, then chown it to your username and symlink it somewhere on your desktop.

It's a dangerous solution though - you might run out of space on /usr

could you explain how i can do this in terminal? im new to linux...

THANK YOU! Wow that was simple! I can't believe i waisted 5 days on another forum trying to get an answer. Thank you so much.

Sure.

But you have to understand that this is a hack - the proper way to do it would be to create another partition on your SD card and then mount it somewhere in your home directory. That way there wouldn't be a danger of you putting, say, a huge movie file into /usr/yourpreferredname directory and using up all /usr partition. Because if that happens and you then try to install some program things will break for there will be no space for that program to go into.

All that aside here's what you can do quickly.

In terminal:

cd /usr

sudo mkdir yourpreferreddirectoryname

(here it will ask for your password)

sudo chown yourusername yourpreferreddirectoryname


Now try if you can put any files into that directory.

Remember - on my laptop /usr is just over 3 gigs - you don't want to run out of space there!!!

If everything works you can then put a symlink ('shortcut') on your desktop to the directory we've just created.

In terminal:

ln -s /usr/yourpreferreddirectoryname /home/yourusername/Desktop/yourpreferreddirectoryname


EDIT: By the way this is a reply to post #7 not post #8.

Ok, i got ya. I'll keep a very close eye on the remaining space in the folder. I really appreciate your help. It seems like that was such a simple fix, i'm frankly surprised no one else at the other forum couldn't tell me that. Maybe they just didn't want to help. I will tell my friends about this forum! I am now a believer!