Re: 100% used / file system. Help!

[Lisi <lisi.reisz@gmail.com>]

On Tuesday 20 September 2011 20:19:30 Thierry Chatelet wrote:
> On Tuesday 20 September 2011 16:31:26 Lisi wrote:
> > I have accidentally filled something, that I shouldn't have, on my root
> > directory, and have now got a 100% usage of the disk containing my /.
> > This is causing me problems.  (Now there's a surprise!!)
> >
> > I have no backup of my /.  Yes, I know.  I deserve everything I've got.
> > But now that I have been given my just deserts, can any kind soul come to
> > my rescue?  I would be so grateful....  I may, of course, just have to
> > reinstall. :-(
> >
> > Lisi
>
> hapened to me and some friends. Then upgrade dont go to nicely!!!
> Got out of it 2 ways, depending on the hard drive configuration:
>
> If you have LVM, you need a livecd from, say debian, and use it to resize
> your partitions, then you can take time to do your clean up. To resize it
> you need lvm tools which are not present in a basic live cd, so you have to
> install them after you boot whith your cd.
>
> If you have a basic fs, then gparted-live should do the job of resizing.
>
> A third way (never worked for me, but it is still worth trying, as it is
> less painful, was already mentioned by Cameleón, is to use the 5% reserved
> for admin.
> Unfortunatly, I dont remember the command line for that, someone can help?
> Thierry

Thanks, all of you. :-)  

Unfortunately my original email, now I reread it, was less that totally 
informative. :-(

My / does not contain /home, which is on its own large drive.

It contains everything else.

hda1 is /, hda2 is swap.

My / has been trundling along at around 30% full for years.  Now it has 
suddenly filled up completely.  The most likely explanation is that I 
accidentally copied a large directory, say, /home onto hda1.  This has 
happened before, but it has been easy to find and put right.  This time I 
can't find it.  I daren't just wholesale start deleting things on /, and even 
if I can salvage a few gig from swap, it won't be much because it is not a 
large disk.  It doesn't need to be normally!

Once I have solved the keyboard problem, I'll have a look both using GParted 
and using a general purpose live CD.  

I'll ask about the keyboard problem on a British list rather than an 
international one.  I am more likely to get an answer that I understand, 
since it is a problem that we all face: how to get a pipe, working from a 
live CD, using a uk keyboard.

Thanks again for all your help so far.

Lisi