[SOLVED]low disk space on filesystem root

[sabbyATL]

Hi All,

First, let me chart my Linux experience. A couple years ago my husband gave his 8-year-old laptop to our 9 year-year-old son for basic computing, stuff for school. It had Windows XP and it was just barely running. I wiped it and installed Ubuntu and it ran great, really great. And still does.

Along the way I had to do odds and ends in the system to get a variety of programs to run. Nothing major. But it made me interested in using Linux.

In January of this year I bought a new laptop for myself, a Toshiba Qosmio X505-Q8100X (yes, an 18.4" screen - it's really an all in one desktop, not a laptop). It came with W7 Home Edition. I immediately partitioned the 500G HDD so that 100G was allocated to W7 and then on the rest I installed Linux Mint 12.

All was fine for a good long while, until I messed around with configurations so much that I crippled the system. My bad, totally. Newbie learning curve and all that. Also, I like to mess with things. Even if it means I mess it up. I make a point to back stuff up all the time so it wasn't a problem when I had to reinstall.

I decided to install Debian Wheezy this time, on the entire disk and just use VirtualBox for my W7 needs. I have to say I really like the interface right out of the box much better than Mint.

Anyway, when I installed DW I went with LVM. I used a NetInstall DVD. I accepted the default partitioning. Perhaps I shouldn't have. This may be a newbie error.

However, after initial install I began installing certain things I need: nvidia drivers (using DKMS, aka The Debian Way), R, EMACS-ESS, and VirtualBox (to run the version of SAS 9.3 I have, though I have not installed SAS at this time).

I did update the kernel to 3.2.0-3-amd64.


And I started getting a warning at login that says "Low disk space on 'Filesystem root'".

I took a look and saw this:

Code: Select all

sabby@sabbyATL:~$ df -h
Filesystem                 Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs                     322M  309M     0 100% /
udev                        10M     0   10M   0% /dev
tmpfs                      799M  928K  798M   1% /run
/dev/mapper/sabbyATL-root  322M  309M     0 100% /
tmpfs                      5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
tmpfs                      1.6G  692K  1.6G   1% /run/shm
/dev/sda1                  228M   34M  182M  16% /boot
/dev/mapper/sabbyATL-home  412G  906M  390G   1% /home
/dev/mapper/sabbyATL-tmp   368M   11M  339M   3% /tmp
/dev/mapper/sabbyATL-usr   8.3G  5.5G  2.4G  70% /usr
/dev/mapper/sabbyATL-var   2.8G  534M  2.1G  20% /var

So, I feel as thought I should increase /dev/sabbyATL/root (and /dev/sabbyATL/usr) but I've tried a few lvm commands in the recovery console to no avail. Which may not be the correct way to do this.

Can anyone help?

Additionally, I should say I did a whole lot of Googling and checking of forums, attempted several of said suggestions, and other various attempts at fixing this BEFORE I posted this topic.

(you may never remark me in your memory at all but I will still make this statement: I never ask for help until I have exhausted my ability to help myself.)

Best,

Jen

[korilius]

Newbie learning curve and all that. Also, I like to mess with things. Even if it means I mess it up. I make a point to back stuff up all the time so it wasn't a problem when I had to reinstall.

(you may never remark me in your memory at all but I will still make this statement: I never ask for help until I have exhausted my ability to help myself.)

You're a Debian user in the making.

Try this: Move/delete as much stuff from the full partitions that you can. Then, get a live CD with gparted on it and resize your partitions.

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

[sabbyATL]

Why thank you, though I like to think my gateway into traditional computing is statistical programming.

When you say to move/delete as much from the full partition as I can, what do you mean by full partition? By this do you mean the LVM? I know when I run GParted the LVM partition looks like one single partition.

Where shall I move it all to? I do have a 1T WD external HDD (it's currently unformatted, however).

My last ditch is to re-install and reset the LVM there, though I'd rather avoid that, if possible. But I will do it if a LiveCD doesn't work.

[nadir]

Why do you use lvm at all?
I always thought and heard the main reason is that one can easily resize partitions.

I did a whole lot of Googling and checking of forums,

a short "resize lvm partitions" via searchengine doesn't make that sound true.

attempted several of said suggestions,

Omit the story of your life and tell us which suggestions you tried and what didn't work.

[sabbyATL]

nadir, indeed, the lowpoint of this thread.

I don't appreciate being called a liar, even in implication.

I've heard the Debian forums are a black hole of nastiness and am prepared to ignore further unpleasant posts.

To point, I've tried to use recovery mode and the rescue option of my Debian install disk to resize the partition using lvm commands.

And that's 100% of what I found by Googling.

Please remember that when someone says they exhaust their ability to do something it IMPLIES they don't yet have much ability.

As for the life story, I felt it might be important to impart my experience on the newbie forum AND my willingness to experiment.

Now, WHAT can YOU do to help ME?

[korilius]

Deep breath..and relaaaax.

what do you mean by full partition?

By full, I mean out of space.

Take a look at these links:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/LVM#Configuration
http://askubuntu.com/questions/196125/h ... -partition
http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/410
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=56440
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/commontask.html

Figure out what is relevant/specific to your system, back your junk up, do some reading and give it a shot!

Edit: Here's an example of how I set my partitions up

Code: Select all

df -h
Filesystem                                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs                                                   35G  579M   32G   2% /
udev                                                     10M     0   10M   0% /dev
tmpfs                                                   176M  1.8M  175M   1% /run
tmpfs                                                   5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
tmpfs                                                   1.1G   80K  1.1G   1% /run/shm
/dev/sda9                                                86G   24G   59G  29% /home
/dev/sda10                                              487G  178G  284G  39% /myth
/dev/sda8                                               1.4G   35M  1.3G   3% /tmp
/dev/sda6                                                66G  6.2G   56G  10% /usr
/dev/sda7                                                12G  4.2G  7.0G  38% /var

[nadir]

Now, WHAT can YOU do to help ME?

If you are not able to handle lvm
and if you ain't got a reason to use it,
then don't use it.
Problem solved.

[el chapulín]

I've heard the Debian forums are a black hole of nastiness and am prepared to ignore further unpleasant posts.

You see, you brought your own problems with you.

[korilius]

Just relax everyone.

[golinux]

The Control Panel of this forum offers an 'ignore' option under 'Friends and Foes'. Comes in quite handy at times.

[nadir]

The Control Panel of this forum offers an 'ignore' option under 'Friends and Foes'. Comes in quite handy at times.

Not only handy. It is a mighty weapon.
You can announce it all the time: "Hurgha, i will put you on my ignore list. No, simply ignoring won't suffice. You will get to know all my power." (in the background... Bruce Willies trembles in fear ...)

K, that said:
Lets talk about the OP's husband and son and what not.
In a relaxed manner, sure.

[korilius]

Wow, look at that. It does work quite beautifully.

[el chapulín]

I can't see any point in the foes list as you're effectively saying, "you annoy me, I will have to forcibly censor you posts to prevent this". If you allow someone to annoy you on a bulletin board... well... pull the plug...

The only use I can see in it is, let's say there is someone who doesn't help themselves, demands that someone spoon feed them a step by step walk through, refuses to search, behaves in an ungrateful manner, etc - I don't want to run into that person again in a few weeks time after forgetting about it and then repeat it all over again and... So the foes list would be a useful reminder to me in terms of: "not worth the time and effort involved".

[Cope57]

Most common reasons for root filing up would be old kernels or logfiles in /var/log
One could use

Code: Select all

apt-get autoclean

to clean up some space.

Edit: I just remembered that the application bleachbit can help you also clean out the cruft.

[glaston]

Way to make someone feel welcome here guys!?
Ya know, fellas, and I'm only saying this cuz i care, but there are alot of decaffeinated brands on the market today that are just as tasty as the real thing.
OP:
I use LVM and LOVE it!
The problem is that you allowed the installer to allocate all your space. That defeats most of the reason to use LVM. If all your space is already allocated, the only benefit then is if you add another physical disk to the system. When using LVM it's best to create modest partitions(some say minimal, but I don't prefer it) and leave yourself alot of unallocated space that you can distribute further when filesystems start running out of space.
The bigger problem you're facing is that it's your / filesystem that ran out. Had it been something else, like /home, then you could just unmount the volume to resize it.
This is trial and error at work here...
Before you can add space to the / system, you have to decrease space somewhere else. Likely your /home partition since it contains the majority of your space. After increasing/decreasing the size of partitions with LVM you have to also grow/shrink the filesystem to match.
It's relatively simple and straightforward unless you're dealing with the / partition.
Partition editors like gparted are of no use as they aren't really LVM aware. The biggest complaint regarding LVM is the lack of GUI tools to manage it. So you have to be kind of cozy with the command line. If you aren't already, you will be. Which is why it's a great opportunity to learn by using LVM and being forced to use the command line.

Also, since this a laptop/desktop replacement, you really don't need all the partitions you have right now. All you really need is seperate / and /home, or seperate /, /home, and usr/local.
At this point it may be less of a hassle for you to reinstall the system and setup LVM manually. Unless you want to go in and resize all your partitions. My suggestion would be to reinstall and start small with LVM in 2 ways. Don't create a bunch of partitions you don't need, and don't allocate all your disk space. Experiment with LVM commands on extra non-system partitions to get comfortable.
Manually configuring LVM can be a little confusing at first.
Basically you create one large partition on the drive, set it to be "used as" a physical volume for LVM. Then you create logical volumes for the partitions you want, make sure to name them according to what their use will be. Make sure to give yourself some room to breathe in the root partition since it's the hardest to resize.
Then once you've created your LV's, you go in and choose filesystems and mount points for each of them the way you would any other partition.
Don't shy away from using LVM. IMO, it's the way disks should be managed on all OS'. It's a very powerful way to handle partitions. Adding new disks later is a breeze.

[sabbyATL]

Hi glaston,

Thanks for the nice post AND, by the way, this is essentially what I ended up doing. Also, sorry it took me so long to resolve this post - traveling out of the country for work and all. I did re-install and went with just 3 and I set them to be large enough they should never run out in the lifespan of this machine. It took me a couple a few minutes to realize I couldn't really mess up the process.

But you're right, I let the installer set it the first time and it set it so it would fill up quick. Now I am wondering why would the default do such a thing? Or, is it more like, all settings are at _NULL_ and it's up to us to know how to set them?

Anyway, gave myself 16G in /, so I should be good.

Jen

[korilius]

I'm a guessin' that the system allocates the size that way figuring you'll know if you need to expand or not based on what you're doing and how much housekeeping you're going to do. When I came back to Linux I had to do a lookup during that part of the install and set my partitions accordingly. I flubbed up and put too much in a lot of places (as you can see in my previous df -h post) but I was being overly cautious.