Ubuntu

hard disk full, won't boot past login screen

Asked by asvxxxxxxx

 Hello. OK, so I am running Ubuntu 6.10, my first experience with a Linux/unix based OS. It's gone well enough so far that this is my first occasion of being unable to find existing help offered anywhere, though I imagine it is because I'm not entering the proper search parameters. So here goes:
 I ran out of hard disk space (20GB) then tried logging out. System froze up, so powered off and upon reboot, I can't get past the login. Most often, after password, it starts to load then jumps back to login screen without any error message. A couple of times it has gone to an error screen mentioning the possibility of a full hard disk (which is true) and one time it got to the Nautilus screen, stalling in the middle of loading.
 My idea was to load from the live disk and open up sufficient disk space on the existing install. Thus far I have not been able to reach the proper folders while trying to do so.
 I'm hoping there's an embarrassingly simple solution to this and thankful for the help that this forum provides.

Anthony

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jz (jz+) said : 		#1

For an easy way to clear up some space on your disk you may first want to try this; when you get to the login screen instead of putting in your username and password hold down CTRL+ALT+F1 then enter your username and password as prompted... after you are logged in type "sudo apt-get clean" without the quotation marks, enter your password again if prompted and restart to see if you can log in normally.

If however you prefer to use the LiveCD to clean up you will want to delete non essential files from your /home directory. When you booted the CD you were not able to see the contents of your hard disk because it was not mounted... To mount:

1. Create a folder on the desktop in your LiveCD session called "temp"
2. Open a terminal window and type "sudo mount /dev/sda1 /home/ubuntu/Desktop/temp/"
3. Open the temp folder on your desktop and the files should appear in it

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Best asvxxxxxxx (brickvickie) said : 		#2

Aha. So I went with the simpler solution, which was the terminal/ctrl-alt-f1 + clean suggestion.
 Thanks for the help!

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Francis Leishman (francis-leishman) said : 		#3

So to be clear:-

If you simply mount the disk by right click - mount, you get a 'you are not authorised to reed this file' message, but by using the 'sudo mount' into a temp folder you bypass the security?

Regards

Francis

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Francis Leishman (francis-leishman) said : 		#4

Thanks ;) I get it now.

You do not bypass security, but using CTRL+ALT+F1 you login and have full rights. All you then need is BASH commands at http://www.ss64.com/bash.

Linux virgin:- learning fast

Francis