Disk full - Beginner - First time user

[Lucio M Nicolosi]

On Sat, Aug 1, 2009 at 12:05 AM, Tiago Pereira<t27026t at yahoo.com.br> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> After so many year suffering with windows I decided to migrate to linux. My
> first experience with ubuntu is amazing, but I think I did something wrong
> during the installation process. Indeed, I did a dual-boot with both Ubuntu
> and Windows XP. Before installing Ubuntu, I have partiotioned the hard disk.
>
> However, now I see that my disk is full.
>
> Is the any procedure I can do to fix this?
>
> I will be grateful for any help.
>
> All the best,
>
> Tiago
>
> Here we go:
>
> Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
> Disk identifier: 0x26922692
>
>    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/sda1   *           1        7649    61440561    7  HPFS/NTFS
> /dev/sda2            7650        9729    16707600    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
> /dev/sda5            7650        9403    14088973+   7  HPFS/NTFS
> /dev/sda6            9404        9707     2441848+  83  Linux
> /dev/sda7            9708        9729      176683+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
>
> Disk /dev/sdb: 1998 MB, 1998585856 bytes
> 16 heads, 32 sectors/track, 7624 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 512 * 512 = 262144 bytes
> Disk identifier: 0x00000000
>
>    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/sdb1               1        7624     1951728    e  W95 FAT16 (LBA)
>
>
> tiago at tiago-desktop:~$ df -h
> Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> /dev/sda6             2.3G  2.2G     0 100% /
> tmpfs                1007M     0 1007M   0% /lib/init/rw
> varrun               1007M  216K 1007M   1% /var/run
> varlock              1007M     0 1007M   0% /var/lock
> udev                 1007M  164K 1007M   1% /dev
> tmpfs                1007M   84K 1007M   1% /dev/shm
> lrm                  1007M  2.4M 1005M   1%
> /lib/modules/2.6.28-11-generic/volatile
> /dev/sdb1             1.9G  942M  965M  50% /media/KINGSTON
> /dev/sda1              59G   45G   15G  76% /media/disk
> /dev/sda5              14G   92M   14G   1% /media/disk-1
> /dev/sr1              655M  655M     0 100% /media/COD1
>

Tiago,

It seems you have just installed Ubuntu so I suppose you do not have a
lot of stuff to lose if you just scrap this Linux install and begin it
all over again. (In case you do have, just use your Kingston chip as
backup).

Then consider the amount of HD space you'll ever need for Windows
(since I started using Ubuntu my Windows partitions gradually shrank
up to non-existence. (I use VirtualBox whenever I need to run
Windows-only stuff.

Then radically clean and defrag your Windows with a tool such as
http://www.mydefrag.com/ after shrinking or deleting that
inconvenient, unmovable W swap file.

Then, using http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ or even Live CD, shrink
both Windows partitions, but not radically, and if needed resize your
primary and secondary partitions. (I would do it in steps, have your
Win CD at hand in case it complains, it may)

You'll end up with a lot of free space in the secondary partition.

If your RAM is bigger than, say 2 gigs, you'll seldom use a /swap
partition, so put it at the end of the disk with a size a little
bigger than you RAM or even less if you do not need suspend or
hibernate. If you have little memory or intend to run an indecent
amount of stuff simultaneously, put your /swap at the beginning with a
size roughly two times your RAM, that's the standard recipe.

Set aside at least 6 gigs for a /root partition (Ext3, if you may), 10
would be my choice, not a single bit more (never let /root run out of
space, they say), and maybe 5 gigs for /home, (always) running on its
own partition.

If there's anything left, leave it there, later you can decide whether
to create another Ext3/NTFS/FAT32 partition, increase /home or even
install Karmic beta and wonder why you had not set at first an
additional 200 meg partition just for /boot. GParted is your friend.

Of course, our gurus advise us to always backup our precious data
before proceedings such as these, in case W goes berserk.

That's what I would do, just my two centavos de Real.

Boa sorte.

Lucio

-- 
L M Nicolosi, Eng.
Lat.:  23°34'4.79"S - Long.: 46°39'59.53"W
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