[SOLVED] Disk Management Suggestions

[drjoewebb]

In so many ways I'm still such a Linux newbie -- I got a "not enough disk space" message when I tried to install Libre Office -- and I knew it was not possible from a disk size perspective.

This is my situation
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1              12G   11G  452M  97% /
/dev/sda6             214G  105G  109G  49% /home
tmpfs                 1.5G     0  1.5G   0% /dev/shm

I'm still used to seeing "Drive C" and stuff like that. I suspect that I am my own worst enemy. I keep folders of my work on my Desktop, and probably all my years of work are stuffed in there in /sda1 (I have no clue what that means in layman terms, other than it is a partition).

How do I get non-essentials from sda1 to sda6 where I seemingly have lots of room? or can I assign my Desktop to that partition?

Thanks very much!

[uncleV]

I keep folders of my work on my Desktop, and probably all my years of work are stuffed in there in /sda1 (I have no clue what that means in layman terms, other than it is a partition).

I suppose your Desktop directory should be /home/<username>/Desktop, e.g. at sda6 partition where you have much of space.

You could shrink a little sda6 and expand sda1. There are several ways to do it. But first back up your most significant data.

[AS]

I'm still used to seeing "Drive C" and stuff like that. I suspect that I am my own worst enemy. I keep folders of my work on my Desktop, and probably all my years of work are stuffed in there in /sda1 (I have no clue what that means in layman terms, other than it is a partition).

Think about /dev/sda1 being equivalent to "drive C" and /dev/sda6 being equivalent to "drive D", probably you have copied your own files to "drive C = /dev/sda1",
if you move your files to a desktop folder, supposing you are not working as root, your files will go to /home/<login id name>, therefore on /dev/sda6.

Of course, as suggested from uncleV, you will have better time resizing the partitions, but it can safely be a second step, if I understand correctly your words
you don't have much practice about partitioning disks.

AS

[Bald Brick]

drjoewebb,

Unless you yourself have moved your Desktop directory from /home/<username>/Desktop to /Desktop it won't be directly under /. I suspect that your root directory (/) has simply filled up. 12G is plenty if you are very careful about what you install; if you try out lots of programs, it's not nearly enough. First, try uninstalling a few large apps. Then do what uncleV suggested. (If you have any partitions between /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda6 you may need a lot more help though. And I'm almost certain that you at least have a /dev/sda5. What does fdisk -l /dev/sda say.)

[menotu]

+1 to what uncleV suggests - backup your data/settings/bookmarks etc to somewhere safe.

+1 to Bald Brick as well - it does look as though /root has filled up.

After removing any apps you may not need try running Bleachbit to remove other unwanted stuff.  You can run  Bleachbit as both root and user. Check that the System/temporary file option is selected.

Could also try running Dupeclean for any other rpms you may have lingering around.

[drjoewebb]

What does fdisk -l /dev/sda say.)

not much:
Cannot open /dev/sda


Anyway, I went into root to look at properties of /home, and it is in the area of the disk where I lots of room. But when I went to /etc and others and looked at my properties, it's in the small partition.

I thought since I record a some audio that perhaps Audacity's .au files were clogging up things. They're in the larger size partition, so it wasn't that.

So I guess I have to expand the size of /sda1 and it's not really a matter of moving files around.

After I back up my work.... what's my next step? Is there a how-to that you recommend?

[Xenaflux]

First checkup in /var/cache/apt/archives.
Some people have a setting in Synaptic which tells them 'not' to delete files after downloading/updating

The above link should be virtual empty.

Secondly. look for an application called filelight
--------------------------------
Graphical disk usage statistics
Filelight graphically represents a file system as a set of concentric
segmented-rings, indicating where diskspace is being used. Segments expanding
from the center represent files (including directories), with each segment's
size being proportional to the file's size and  directories having child
segments. Filelight performs a similar function to KDirstat, but in a more
compact fashion.
-----------------------------------

This way you maybe can find out another solution

Xx

[drjoewebb]

First checkup in /var/cache/apt/archives.
Some people have a setting in Synaptic which tells them 'not' to delete files after downloading/updating

The above link should be virtual empty.

YIKES! I have more than 5GB tied up there! How do I get rid of it? I just did
Open Synaptic, go to Settings - Preferences - Files and there is a button to clear the cache, and also to set Synaptic to delete the downloaded files after they are installed.

Guess what: I now have 50% free in that partition!

Thanks very much!