can I recover from disk full - without reboot ? can't open display
 

Fedora core 2 + freshrpms.
Tried to open a very large gif in gimp. The gimp temp file filled the / partition; ie zero bytes free.
My first thought was to clear the /tmp folder, which gave some errors on open files, but got me a few 100 k back. I then moved a large downloaded file of the drive that allowed me to have 150M free.
I was doing some stability testing by running:
mplayer --nosound with a playlist of mpg files.
xmms with a 48 hour playlist.
----
Following morning, the machine is still responding, but mplayer had exited, and xmms was stuck/locked. My other desktops have limewire running OK, ggv with pdf file open. and mozilla has multiple windows open. I can still web browse OK. However, mozilla can open new windows !

Problem is that I can't start any gui apps at all. Clicking gnome icons, displays starting eg same gnome icon, but it hides after 7 secs without opening applcation.
Luckily I have some gnometerm windows open. I was able to nuke xmms with kill (process no).
trying to start any x app waits about 5-10 secs, and says:
$ xmms

** CRITICAL **: Unable to open display
$
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Can I do something other than restarting X (ie logoff/on) to get it back ?

Can I instruct a running app (limewire that I don't want to kill (its java based)) to change the display it's using to an vncserver session ? Then I could relogin and re change the running app back to my new login ?

ps. where does gimp store its temp files (it must be over 1 G in size....)

gimp temps: file|preferences|folders
mine was: /home/me/.gimp-2.0/tmp
by the way restarting gimp removes the crashed temp file.
hmm couldn't find it with find (gnome), is this because it is hidden ?

it is possible to stop the X enviroment, but then your graphical programs stop.

What you can do is to go to init level 3 and the look what is still running from the init 5 level.
How well like this:

go to a console, if possible: in your X press CTRL+ALT+F2
your console should appear.

now logon as root, go to init level 3 (init 3) this is also the level where there is still network support.
look with ps -ef at all running processes. if something of X is still running, kill it.
and go back to init level 5 (init 5) and X should start again.

And then go on with what ever you did.