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[jim_collins2]

thank you all for your help - I will download Puppy now!

[Petro Dawg]

I believe the partition is full also. I ran sudo 'apt-get -f install' and it seemed to be working, but then I got the message can't write to /var/cache/man/3346: No space left on device errors were encountered while processing:

So I need to boot from a CD or flash drive, navigate to this directory, delete things? Can you tell me what in that directory should not be deleted? Also to prevent this from happening again, can I change the size of that partition?

Er, if you are getting into that situation I would use live boot just to back up whatever important documents you might have in your Home directory and then just do a fresh install. (if you only have a 12 G partition it should be easy to back it all up)

I don't know how the virtual environment works, it may not be correctly reading the available space (I could be wrong).

If you are sharing a HD with Windows, you will probably have to shrink the windows partition from within windows (Google it to find out how) to give your self some more room and then reinstall Ubuntu. If it is a 100% dedicated Ubuntu hard-drive then do a "delete everything and re-install".

[jim_collins2]

Varun, ANY and ALL help is greatly appreciated. I am downloading both the latest CD and Puppy and I have at least 1 hour before they are downloaded. I will try to do the sudo apt-get clean and autoremove and let you know the results.

[jim_collins2]

I have no problem starting over, but can I save the shows that have been recorded? If not then my wife will be most displeased. I cannot overstate the level of her displeasure. I NEED to save those shows!!!!!

[varunendra]

I will try to do the sudo apt-get clean and autoremove and let you know the results.

You can run those (and all) commands from both the virtual consoles or the recovery mode > drop to root shell. I'm assuming you may have more than a hundred MB in the /var/cache/apt/archives directory which will get cleaned up by the "apt-get clean" command.

Once you have about 100-200 MB space available, you can boot normally into GUI mode and can check > delete/move files to make more room.

And yes, for a normal installation of Ubuntu, at least 20-26 GB space is recommeded, not sure about mythbuntu though. In any case, your first priority is to get the GUI again, then you can try whatever you are comfortable with to expand the partition.

[jim_collins2]

If I do start over, what would the best partition size be? I have a 1TB hard drive. This computer is the only one used for Myth. It is both the back end and front end. I have limited music stored on the computer, limited pictures also.

[jim_collins2]

I ran the get clean and after hitting return I saw nothing - just returned to the next line. the autoremove would not work, I got the same error as before (the long post I had earlier). I believe booting form the CD is my best option at this point.

[varunendra]

Simple maths :

Size of $Home = Size of expected User Data + some more (about 100-200 MB).
Size of root (/, if the Home is on a separate partition, which currently is not) = 2 GB or more

If the Home directory is within the root (/), then,
Size of root (/) = Size of expected User Data + 2 GB or more

Even easier maths :
Size of root = as much as you can comfortably allocate, and not less than 26 GB.

A separate 2 GB or more swap partition is always a recommended thing that goes without saying.


That being said, you can do it all without starting over, although backing up data > starting over is usually a better option if you don't have too many programs to install and not too much configuration to do afterwards.

[varunendra]

I ran the get clean and after hitting return I saw nothing - just returned to the next line.

..means it did its job successfully. Now check the free space again -

df -h

[jim_collins2]

still 100% used in the first directory.