[vox-tech] login problem due to the lack of space

[Bill Kendrick]

On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 05:12:24PM -0700, Alex Mandel wrote:
> Boot a live disk(Knoppix, Ubuntu etc). Check to make sure that the disk 
> is really full. I think you have to mount it first before you can run 
> this command.

Alternatively, you can log in to a text console.  GDM may provide an option for
switching to one, but in any case you should be able to type
[Ctrl] + [Alt] + [F1] to switch to one.  (And [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [F7] to go
back to the GDM login screen.)

You can then use handy Unix command-line tools to figure out what's going
on and clean things up, e.g.:

> df -h

To show how much disk space is free, in human terms (e.g., MB, GB, KB, etc.).
As well as:

  ls -l

...to see a list of files in the current directory.

Or:

  ls -l --sort=size | head

...to see the top offenders, in terms of file size, in the current directory.

  cd somedir
  cd ..
  cd ~
  cd /

...to change into, and out of, sub-directories, go home, and go to the root
of your filesystem, respectively.

And of course:

  rm somefile.xyz

...to remove a particular file.  Or:

  mv somefile.xyz /media/whatever/

...to move files to some external drive, flash disk, etc.


You can also figure out what sub-directories are files taking up the
most space:

  du -s *        (du = "disk use", -s = "summary")

Some files may be in hidden directories, such as stuff in your browser
cache, etc.

  du -s .*
  ls -al
  ls -al --sort=size | head

Good luck!

-- 
-bill!
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