Ubuntu 12.04 installation size

[grantmcduling]

Hi I am assisting my old father to install ubuntu 12.04 in place of Windows XP on his desktop. Not sure of the size of his computer as he lives on another continent to me. Anyway, he has 12.04 up and running with internet connection. But when we came to upgrade the software, he received a message that there were around 800 packages to be updated and he didn't have sufficient space available. I'd like to remove unwanted packages to free up space, but thought it best to first check the size of the partitions and what they had left. How can I do this using the command line? Is there a better way to check if 12.04 is in fact too big for his computer?

[QIII]

Hello!

Is your venerable father able to surf to the Forums? It would probably be much easier for us to help him directly that through a go-between.

Whatever we do, it will likely require some use of the terminal, as the terminal is the "lingua franca" common to all the various Destop Environments/Window Managers out there that most of us can hardly keep track of. Commands in the terminal will make investigating things like disk usage/free space and the like.

We also will probably need some detailed information about your father's computer.

If your father speaks a language other than English, we can probably guide him to an appropriate regional subforum.

Best wishes.

[grantmcduling]

Thanks for your quick reply. I'll suggest that to him. He is an English-speaker, so that's something in his favour!