disk full error preventing update

[bikeman1]

Hi -- I am not able to update because my root partition is listed as being full -- and seems to be. I have a single root partion, plus a home partition. Here is what is up.

myname@server:~/Desktop$ df -Th | sort
/dev/sda1 ext3 56G 55G 0 100% /
/dev/sda6 ext3 35G 1.7G 32G 6% /home
/dev/sdb1 ext2 1.1T 944G 101G 91% /mnt/Wilbur
Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
lrm tmpfs 438M 2.4M 436M 1% /lib/modules/2.6.28-11-generic/volatile
overflow tmpfs 1.0M 20K 1004K 2% /tmp
tmpfs tmpfs 438M 0 438M 0% /lib/init/rw
tmpfs tmpfs 438M 480K 438M 1% /dev/shm
udev tmpfs 438M 160K 438M 1% /dev
varlock tmpfs 438M 0 438M 0% /var/lock
varrun tmpfs 438M 716K 437M 1% /var/run

I think (but am nit sure) that the overload is a backup file (from SimpleBackup) that went directly onto the hard drive rather than the raid array loaded in /mnt, oxccurring when /dev/sdb1 failed to mount. But I can't find the offending file, and can't access the root trash even with gksudo nautilus. I am sort of handcuffed. My own trash (on the desktop) seems empty

Can anyone suggest a way for me to find the lurking trash and delete it ?? whenever I try to view the trash in nautilus, I encounter an error

Sorry, could not display all the contents of "trash": Operation not supported.

and the trash read operation just hangs.

alternately, should I clean up some other filespace and then update?

I did chown permissions of the root trash and try deleting it. No effect. Acts like a permission issue

[Arand]

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/find#Locating%20Files%20by%20Size
^Helps you find files by size

Alternatively you could use the "Search for files and folders utility from the places menu, which also has by-size filtering"
"Disk usage analyzer" under applications>accessories can be used to spot which folders are large
- Arand

[Arand]

And if you want to peek at the trash of root I would normally use a root terminal session:
sudo -iand peek:
ls -lah /root/.local/share/Trash/filesIf something offending is there:
rm -ir /root/.local/share/Trash/*(this will also delete some nautilus metafiles related to the "trashed" files)
If you want to do it quick and dangerous skip the i (interactive) in -ir above.
- Arand

[bikeman1]

Arand, that sure fixed it (the interactive delete). That goes into my book of Linux secrets.....

I understand why it happened, and can/should set up SimpleBackup to not backup onto /mnt when the raid is not loaded. So hopefully it won't happen again

however, why, after it did happen and filled up the hard drive, was it blocking authentication efforts. I was having problems with users-admin, update, various file access issues via nautilus, etc. Was the disk just so full that buffers were unavailable for operations?

Also, I don't understand why deleted files go to the root trash and not the user trash.....

anyway thanks for your help! Bailed me out big time

BM1:)