root partition too small

[rattler]

I recently migrated from Slackware to Kubuntu Dapper. I kept my old partitions from the Slackware installation but now I see that doing so was a mistake. My root partition is too small and I can no longer update the kernel.

How can I increase the size of my root partition without reformatting it, which would of course require reinstalling kubuntu?

Also, here's what my /lib/modules directory looks like:

drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 1024 2006-04-14 09:31 2.6.15-19-386
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 1024 2006-04-14 16:40 2.6.15-20-386
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 1024 2006-04-25 12:08 2.6.15-21-386

The third line is broken because dpkg could never complete the upgrade due to lack of room on the partition. Can I simply delete the first one and try sudo apt-get upgrade again?

The root directory has the following symlinks proving that the first line above is OLD:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 29 2006-04-14 16:40 initrd.img -> boot/initrd.img-2.6.15-20-386
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 29 2006-04-14 09:31 initrd.img.old -> boot/initrd.img-2.6.15-19-386
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 26 2006-04-14 16:40 vmlinuz -> boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-20-386
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 26 2006-04-14 09:31 vmlinuz.old -> boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-19-386

So, to recap, my questions are:

1) how do I increase the size of my root partition?

2) can I delete an old modules directory to temporarily give me more room?

TIA,

r.

[claydoh]

Re: root partition too small

I would suggest booting a livecd to resize the partitions using qtparted or gparted, I do believe they are capable of resizing them. I am not sure if these are on a (K)Ubuntu live cd, but one or the other is usually found on most. A mandriva install disk also has a very good partiton resizer, just quit the install after you set up your drive

I would not recommend doing anything inside your /lib/ dir at all, all kinds of important things are in there. How big/small is your root partition?

You can gain some space by cleaning out your apt cache:
$ sudo apt-get clean
That can get very large as dapper has numerous and frequent updates

[rattler]

Re: root partition too small

Thanks for the info. I'll look into qtparted or gparted.

To answer your question about size, here's a snippet from df -h:

/dev/hda2 236M 203M 20M 92% /

As for running sudo apt-get clean, when I run it, I get the following error message:

E: Invalid operation clean

Am I doing something wrong?

r.

[claydoh]

Re: root partition too small

I must assume you have had different partitions for other filesystem bits in slackware, as in for /opt/ /home, /, and the like. with only 230mb you aren't going to clear enough space out do do you any good, so i would definitely resize. My recent fresh install takes up nearly 1.5 gb with only a few extras installed from stock

Make sure you are using apt-get clean, and not apt-cache clean. Typo on my part there

[skunkarific]

Re: root partition too small

I use acronis TrueImage to resize linux and win partitions. Works fantastically well, you have to make the live CD once installed in a win machine. Feel free to PM me, I will help you