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    #1

    [I GAVE UP]Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

    I was in the middle of something today when the desktop started going black, reappearing for a few seconds when I clicked the mouse, etc. On reboot I got a warning that because /tmp could not be written to there may be problems with X. Clicking the OK gave a terminal asking for login and PW. It accepted them and gave me the normal prompt: "user@computer $"

    I tried typing "startx" and got a screen of text (including at least one out-of-space warning)

    Back in October, when this happened before, I took a photo of that screen and can post it here if that would be helpful. Back then I just reinstalled Natty... I don't want to do that again.

    The text in this photo is a little blurred but maybe it will help.

    [img width=400 height=336]http://i39.tinypic.com/nzmvtf.jpg[/img]
    -- Werdigo49
    Registered Linux User #291592
    Kubuntu Xenial Xerus (16.04)
    Tags: None
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    #2
    Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

    Looks like a video driver (nvidia ?) problem. Have you, like the message on the screen says, looked at /var/log/Xorg.0.log

    Also, when you are the command prompt, type:
    Code:
    df -h
    What is the Use% percentage reported for / ?
    Windows no longer obstructs my view.
    Using Kubuntu Linux since March 23, 2007.
    "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data." - Sherlock Holmes​
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      #3
      Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

      Use 100% [It's a 14G partition on a little, old 30G disk...]

      From /var/log/Xorg.0.log, I get about 7 screens of output, starting with messages like

      No layout section. Using the first Screen section.
      No screen section available. Using defaults.
      ---> Screen "Default Screen Section"
      --->Monitor "<default monitor>"
      No monitor specified for screen "Default Screen Section"
      Using a default monitor configuration.
      .
      .
      .
      The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic" does not exist.
      The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi" does not exist.
      The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi" does not exist.


      There's obviously lots more. Maybe this suggests something. I can use the console to free up some space on / if it can be done safely.
      -- Werdigo49
      Registered Linux User #291592
      Kubuntu Xenial Xerus (16.04)
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        #4
        Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

        you should first try
        Code:
        sudo apt-get clean
        this will remove all the stored packages you have installed from /var/cache/apt/archives

        VINNY
        i7 4core HT 8MB L3 2.9GHz
        16GB RAM
        Nvidia GTX 860M 4GB RAM 1152 cuda cores
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          #5
          Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

          Originally posted by werdigo49
          Use 100% [It's a 14G partition on a little, old 30G disk...]
          Yup, vinnywright is correct. Your root partition is totally full. You need to do some house cleaning. The command vinnywright gave you will clean out the download package cache (I do this after all package installations). After running the command, check your space usage again. You should see a significant reduction in the space used on root.
          Windows no longer obstructs my view.
          Using Kubuntu Linux since March 23, 2007.
          "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data." - Sherlock Holmes​
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            #6
            Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

            Good idea, Vinny... and snowhog. Tried it first on this Lucid disk and found a lot of stuff in /var/cache/apt/archives; running "clean" left me with only "lock" and "partial," and partial was empty. But it cut / partition use only from 5.2G to 5.0G.

            Unfortunately I ran "clean" on the 14G Natty / partition before looking at the /var/cache/apt/archives directory, but afterwards it too had only "lock" and "partial" (with "partial" empty). And df -h still shows 100% (14G used, out of 14G).

            BTW, to make sure apt was working I "apt-get install"'d a little program I knew I already had, and it searched file lists, etc., and reported that the latest version was already installed... so apt was working properly. I was advised that I could delete a couple of linux-header files, and that 96M would freed up, so I did that. But still 100% use, and a restart produced the same failure.

            That Natty / thing is really bloated (14G vs 5 for this Lucid / partition). Any suggestions for other places to look?
            -- Werdigo49
            Registered Linux User #291592
            Kubuntu Xenial Xerus (16.04)
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              #7
              Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

              Try SteveRiley's cleanup command from here: http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...0268#msg280268
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                #8
                Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

                The du (disk usage) command, along with the sort command, can help you explore where there might be an excess of files. First run sudo -i to elevate to root and then cd / to get to the top. Next, run

                du -d1 | sort -g

                to display a list of top-level directories, sorted in increasing order by size (by default, the values are in kilobytes). If you wanted to explore two levels deep from / use this:

                du -d2 | sort -g

                Also, you might try simply cleaning out /tmp and /var/tmp completely.
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                  #9
                  Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

                  Oh...and another thing. Consider installing localepurge. You can pick your language (en and en_US) in my case; localepurge then wipes out all other localizations and man pages. It hooks into apt/dpkg and applies its operation after every package install. You can free up tens, sometimes hundreds of megabytes with this. And despite the package's warning about it being a hack, so far I've not encountered a problem.
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                    #10
                    Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

                    Originally posted by SteveRiley
                    The du (disk usage) command, along with the sort command, can help you explore where there might be an excess of files. First run sudo -i to elevate to root and then cd / to get to the top. Next, run

                    du -d1 | sort -g

                    to display a list of top-level directories, sorted in increasing order by size (by default, the values are in kilobytes). If you wanted to explore two levels deep from / use this:

                    du -d2 | sort -g

                    Also, you might try simply cleaning out /tmp and /var/tmp completely.
                    Those du commands don't work. -d invalid option and -1 invalid option
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                      #11
                      Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

                      Originally posted by Mazal
                      Those du commands don't work. -d invalid option and -1 invalid option
                      Check man du. Do you not see an option for -d or --max-depth?

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                        #12
                        Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

                        try this one

                        Code:
                        sudo du -h --max-depth=1 | sort -g
                        turned this out for me

                        vinny@Vinnys-HP-G62:/$ sudo du -h --max-depth=1 | sort -g
                        [sudo] password for vinny:
                        du: cannot access `./proc/3223/task/3223/fd/4': No such file or directory
                        du: cannot access `./proc/3223/task/3223/fdinfo/4': No such file or directory
                        du: cannot access `./proc/3223/fd/4': No such file or directory
                        du: cannot access `./proc/3223/fdinfo/4': No such file or directory
                        0 ./proc
                        0 ./sys
                        1.1G ./var
                        2.4M ./run
                        3.6G ./usr
                        4.0K ./cdrom
                        4.0K ./dev
                        4.0K ./lib64
                        4.0K ./media
                        4.0K ./selinux
                        4.0K ./srv
                        8.0K ./.config
                        8.9M ./bin
                        9.5M ./sbin
                        12K ./mnt
                        13M ./etc
                        15M ./lib32
                        16K ./lost+found
                        29M ./root
                        84K ./tmp
                        85M ./boot
                        112G ./home
                        117G .
                        263M ./opt
                        487M ./lib
                        vinny@Vinnys-HP-G62:/$
                        VINNY
                        i7 4core HT 8MB L3 2.9GHz
                        16GB RAM
                        Nvidia GTX 860M 4GB RAM 1152 cuda cores
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                          #13
                          Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

                          The -h switch kind of messes up the ordering, though...the output isn't strictly increasing now. Not that it really matters, but it's more difficult to quickly spot the huge space consumers.
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                            #14
                            Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

                            Originally posted by SteveRiley
                            The -h switch kind of messes up the ordering, though...the output isn't strictly increasing now. Not that it really matters, but it's more difficult to quickly spot the huge space consumers.
                            true............. but I hate looking at 3684956 verses 3.6G ........ :P

                            and actually if thats the case it runs off way quicker without the sort anyway.........although you do half to look at each line then ....

                            VINNY
                            i7 4core HT 8MB L3 2.9GHz
                            16GB RAM
                            Nvidia GTX 860M 4GB RAM 1152 cuda cores
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                              #15
                              Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

                              Originally posted by SteveRiley
                              Originally posted by Mazal
                              Those du commands don't work. -d invalid option and -1 invalid option
                              Check man du. Do you not see an option for -d or --max-depth?

                              Only a --max-depth option , no -d option.

                              Is it because I am on an older Kubuntu (11.04) ?
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