PDA

View Full Version : [ubuntu] Can't upgrade because disk is full...



goemonburo
January 15th, 2010, 11:22 PM
Hi, I am trying to upgrade to 9.10 but it fails because the disk is full. I am running a Dell Mini with 16GB SSD...so there isn't a lot of free space to begin with. Added to that, I have some hefty applications (rosegarden, audacity, skype, etc) which I kind of need.

Am I better off just sticking to 9.04? Are there any good ways to clean up the system and get rid of stuff that might be sticking around? I did apt-get clean and it didn't clean enough.

Thanks for any and all help!

raymondh
January 15th, 2010, 11:31 PM
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=5649417&postcount=1
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RecoverLostDiskSpace

Always worth a try ... 'specially the tutorial by Dave (DRS305).

16GB can handle Ubuntu .... but, you do have existing apps already that may make it "tight" ... space-wise. If you can trim that down to say, 8GB, then I think you can upgrade with no problems.

Raymond

lykwydchykyn
January 15th, 2010, 11:36 PM
can you post the output of "df -h"?

Also, did the upgrade utility tell you how much free space you needed?

goemonburo
January 16th, 2010, 03:18 AM
Well, it appears df -h explains much of the mystery: I have only 5.7 gig on my root partition, then about 6 500 megabyte partitions that are almost empty...in total they take up probably 3 Gig.

Then 8 Gig is for my /home.

Here's the output:

me@mydellmini9:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 5.7G 5.1G 298M 95% /
tmpfs 497M 0 497M 0% /lib/init/rw
varrun 497M 112K 497M 1% /var/run
varlock 497M 0 497M 0% /var/lock
udev 497M 148K 497M 1% /dev
tmpfs 497M 88K 497M 1% /dev/shm
lrm 497M 2.2M 495M 1% /lib/modules/2.6.28-17-generic/volatile
/dev/sda2 8.5G 5.3G 2.9G 65% /home
/dev/mmcblk0p1 15G 15G 655M 96% /media/disk-16


I didn't do the partitioning...this was prepartitioned and I bought it with Ubuntu on it from Dell. Can I just back up my home directory and wipe everything with a fresh install?

I am a novice with Ubuntu but have been using Linux for a long time. I just don't want to see things like my integrated webcam or sound break...that kind of thing.

Many thanks for suggestions...

:-)

Sef
January 16th, 2010, 04:03 AM
I didn't do the partitioning...this was prepartitioned and I bought it with Ubuntu on it from Dell. Can I just back up my home directory and wipe everything with a fresh install?

I am a novice with Ubuntu but have been using Linux for a long time. I just don't want to see things like my integrated webcam or sound break...that kind of thing.

If you do not want to risk breakage, then stick with 9.04, Jaunty Jackalope.

lykwydchykyn
January 16th, 2010, 05:03 AM
Ok, first those 500Mb file systems are not actual disk partitions, they're just virtual filesystems in RAM. you can ignore them.

You really have only the two partitions on the disk.

Second, I agree with Sef. If you don't want to risk breakage, don't upgrade. At the very least, make a bootable usb drive with 9.10 on it and see if all those things work from a live environment first.


Finally, if you do feel brave enough for an upgrade, I'd say a reinstall is your best bet. But don't wipe the disk, you can just install to sda1 and leave your home partition intact.

One more thing, you might want to contact Dell customer service to see what they advise about this maneuver. They may have known issues with 9.10 or have advice on how to avoid problems.

goemonburo
January 17th, 2010, 04:45 AM
Okay, for now I will just hold off. I am pretty used to breakage but on the other hand, things work pretty well right now. My biggest hope was that snd-rtctimer might be fixed for 9.10, so that Rosegarden and other audio/music-recording apps would work better. But I can still do most of that on my other system.

Thanks for the suggestions and help!