hard drive space issue

[etnietering]

I recently installed Vector Linux GOLD 5.8 on a low-budget computer that I built.  It has a 4GB Microdrive for its storage, partitioned into 512MB for swap, 2560MB for /, and the rest for /home (~900MB).  After installing VL, the / partition registers 100% full, and the /home partition about 16% full (I installed BOINC to /home).  I want to install the gcc-java, so I can do some programming, but that partition has 0.0MB free.  I have tried uninstalling things, such as games, audio/video codecs, etc, but no free space is ever gained (it still registers 0.0MB).  I have click the 'delete package cache' button on gslapt, but that does nothing.  What can I do to open up some space? or is there some error in the hardware that is keeping things from working properly?  Thanks.

[saulgoode]

I am thinking that GSLAPT might not work unless there is some free space available (not sure though, I don't use GSLAPT).

Try manually removing the "/usr/doc/Linux-HOWTOs" directory:

rm -rvf /usr/doc/Linux-HOWTOs /var/log/packages/linux-howtos-*

That should gain you about 30Mb and perhaps provide some "breathing room" for GSLAPT.

[etnietering]

thank you for the advice, however, it has no effect.  It returns no errors, but no space is freed.

i used slapt-get to remove an unnecessary package, and here is what the output was:

vector://home/eric
root:# slapt-get --remove xvidcore
Reading Package Lists... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  xvidcore
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After unpacking 1MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [y/N] y


Removing package xvidcore-1.1.0beta2-i686-4vl58...
sort: fflush failed: standard output: No space left on device
sort: write error
sed: couldn't write 34 items to stdout: No space left on device
sed: couldn't write 27 items to stdout: No space left on device

Done


this leads me to believe theres something wrong elsewhere.....
should I just try a reinstall?
thanks

[saulgoode]

It sounds as though your VL install may not have completed properly (probably ran out of HD space). The "no space on stdout" error is very strange, as is the fact that removing a file does not free any space (how are you checking disk space?).

If you do re-install, I would recommend dropping the size of your swap partition. I know Vector recommends 512M but you can drop that to 128M since you are so tight on HD space.

Some information that might prove useful:

Amount of RAM

Output of 'fdisk -l'

Output of 'df'

Output of 'mount'

[etnietering]

to check for free space, I use the little 'devices' panel item.  It seems to work well.  If I do reinstall, I will do a more lightweight install (not even install the games and multimedia to begin with) and shrink the swap size.

I have 1024MB of dual channel DDR

here are the outputs you requested:

vector://home/eric
root:# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hdc: 4095 MB, 4095737856 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7936 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdc1   *           1        4960     2499808+  83  Linux
/dev/hdc2            4961        5952      499968   82  Linux swap
/dev/hdc3            5953        7936      999936   83  Linux
vector://home/eric
root:# df
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hdc1              2460480   2460452         0 100% /
/dev/hdc3               984184    111136    823052  12% /home
tmpfs                   517116         0    517116   0% /dev/shm
vector://home/eric
root:# mount
/dev/hdc1 on / type ext3 (rw)
/dev/hdc3 on /home type ext3 (rw)
usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw,devgid=10,devmode=0666)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)


it didn't give me any errors when installing that the device was full

[saulgoode]

Everything looks pretty kosher and I can't think of any other solution than to attempt a re-install.

With a gig of RAM you should have no problem with a smaller swap partition (I use a 128Mb swap with a 100Mb VL standard). You might consider having the rest of the disk as your root partition. Normally I prefer putting /home on a dedication partition but with the limited amount of HD storage you have, it might be best to have the flexibility of one large partition. In the future, you can add a second HD and move /home to that (leaving a larger root partition); that is unless this is a laptop without any hope of adding a second HD.

[etnietering]

thanks, I'll do a re-install and see what happens

[etnietering]

fixed
i have 1.3GB open now

thanks a lot