Partition Sizes and How to Set Them Up

[Qqmike]

Re: Partition Sizes and How to Set Them Up

Reply #27 -- dd command.
I do it all the time.

[Qqmike]

Re: Partition Sizes and How to Set Them Up

When you delete a file, the file is not gone.

Privacy Cleanup 101
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde....msg115011#new
Reply #8: How to Delete Data from Your Hard Drives & USB Drives

[IndyTim]

Re: Partition Sizes and How to Set Them Up

If you have a Seagate HD (which I doubt being that the computer was assembled by Dell), you could go to the Seagate site and download the HD tools. For the generic no-name HDs that the assemblers throw into their PCs do a Google on low level formatting. It will pop a number of download sites. I just picked one of them with no knowledge of how the app works.
low level format software

Basically you will boot to the download CD (or ugh floppy). Once initiated, the low level re-format will write either 0s or 1s (forgot which it is) across the entire HD. Note, the bigger the HD, the longer this process takes (like in hours). As you will find out, security has a price in time .

Good Luck,

IndyTim

[KB3NRY]

Re: Partition Sizes and How to Set Them Up

So...I put my new HDD in. Everything seemed to install well. I set Linux up as follows: linux-swap (1.95 GB), Extened; ext3- "/" (10.69), ext3- /home (8.79). I'll get into detail of my install later, but right now I've got a problem. I'm using Open Office...and in the middle of typing without trying to save, I get an error telling me that "Open Office could not save important internal information due to insufficient free disk space at the following location: /home/steve/.openoffice.org2/user/backup. I thought I had plenty of space. When I go into Dolphin to try to find out what might be taking up all that space it shows all the folders as empty. This is very frustrating. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[KB3NRY]

Re: Partition Sizes and How to Set Them Up

Anyone have any idea?

[Qqmike]

Re: Partition Sizes and How to Set Them Up

You might post the output of
sudo fdisk -lu
and
df -hT

Maybe someone can catch the catch (I'm in and out here tonight).

Your Extended partition, is it big enough? To be safe, the Extended partition should extend from where ever you started it until the end of that disk. Makes life easier that way.

Also, when viewing folders in GUI (Konqueror or Dolphin) be sure to enable
View > Show Hidden files
("dot" files -- they start with a dot, like .mozilla)

[Qqmike]

Re: Partition Sizes and How to Set Them Up

If it is the right endpoint of the Extended partition, simply expand the extended partition to the right, all the way to the end, using GParted Live CD.

sudo fdisk -lu
gives it to you in sectors, where 1 sector = 512 bytes;
you can draw a picture showing your partitions, start and end point and size.

[KB3NRY]

Re: Partition Sizes and How to Set Them Up

Your Extended partition, is it big enough? To be safe, the Extended partition should extend from where ever you started it until the end of that disk. Makes life easier that way.

I believe my extended partition should be big enough. I was told, earlier in this thread, 5-7 GB for "/" and 2GB to infinity for "/home." With that I was told that the to infinity is because some store all their files in /home. I did not plan on doing that. I made my "/" 10.69GB (currently 2.79 used), and my "/home" 8.79 GB (currently 8.34 used).

Also, when viewing folders in GUI (Konqueror or Dolphin) be sure to enable
View > Show Hidden files
("dot" files -- they start with a dot, like .mozilla)

I did do this and it opened showed a lot more files, of course. The problem sort of seems to be in my cache, but I'm not certain. Its a little hard for me to tell.

If it is the right endpoint of the Extended partition, simply expand the extended partition to the right, all the way to the end, using GParted Live CD.

My extended partition is the far right partition (looking at it in GParted) with "/home" to the right of "/".


So, does it sound like I've allocated enough space for my extended partition, particularly "/home"? Obviously, not, but my question is, does that sound like a reasonable amount and maybe I have some other problem.

If I have time, I'm going to see an acquaintance tomorrow who may be able to help me. He knows Linux well. I'm just not sure what to make of the files in "/home" particularly those cache files I mentioned (maybe the ones in a folder labeled "c".

Thanks again for all the help. Your advice, comments, compliments, and criticisms are always welcome.

[Qqmike]

Re: Partition Sizes and How to Set Them Up

"So, does it sound like I've allocated enough space for my extended partition, particularly "/home"? "

I still don't know what you did.
sudo fdisk -lu

The Extended partition should go all the way -- all the way to the end of the disk.
It then contains Logical partitions.
Partitioning—how to, Rog131:
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3090704.0



I can't imagine it is a cleanup issue -- since yours is still new, but ...
Cleaning up things, like cache:
In 8.04, it's kcontrol -- Privacy cleanup
In 8.10, I think it is sweeper (can't recall -- I've shut 8.10 down for now).
But it is all here:
Privacy Cleanup 101
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde....msg115011#new
Reply #5: About kcontrol
Reply #8: How to Delete Data from Your Hard Drives & USB Drives
See Reply #10: Privacy Cleanup 101: Update/Summary for Intrepid Ibex KDE4

[flarson]

Re: Partition Sizes and How to Set Them Up

I personally would not have made /home that small but it should work better than it seems to be. To find out where the disk space is used run

du -sh *.*

in your $HOME. That should let you see what is using your disk space, assuming the only thing in /home is your directory.

[IndyTim]

Re: Partition Sizes and How to Set Them Up

KB3NRY,

There seems to be a certain amount of confusion by the community about specifically what you have done to the layout of your hard drive. Some of the users have offered commands to run that will illustrate the layout of your hard drive.

As a point in your learning curve (we all went through it... some of us are continuing on that quest), within your hard drive you are only permitted a maximum of 4 partitions (primary). When you come to the point of adding the 5th partition, you simply cannot do that (sorry I didn't make the "rules"). This is where the "extended" partition comes in. The extended partition is a "container partition". It usually is the 4th partition (can be the second or third). Within the "extended" partition you will put your additional partitions. That is why the question was asked about whether your extended partition took up the remaining space on your hard drive.

As an illustration of this, here's a description of my primary operating system hard drive:
sda1 - ntfs - Windows 2000
sda2 - ext3 Kubuntu 6.10
sda3 - ext3 Kubuntu 6.10 - home
sda4 -Extended
within the extended partition:
swap
sda6 ext3 - Dedicated GRUB
sda7 ext3 - Ubuntu 8.04
sda8 ext3 - Ubuntu 8.04 Home
sda9 ext3 - Mint IV
sda10 ext3 - Mint IV Home
sda11 ext3 - Mint V
sda12 ext3 - Mint V Home

So please post back the hard drive layout so we can render assistance!

IndyTim
ex. WA9GCR

[KB3NRY]

Re: Partition Sizes and How to Set Them Up

Hey again!

I've been swamped with school work lately so I had trouble finding time to fix this. But I went to my professor who knows Linux well and found my problem. I had over 7GB of trash!! I think when I first installed this I put a bunch of files on here and then realized I wanted them in my Shared Data partition so I deleted them, but I forgot to empty the trash. So my problem should be solved now. Thanks everyone for all your help.

Now its time for my next challenge... learning to write programs using the Linux bash shell...

[Qqmike]

Re: Partition Sizes and How to Set Them Up

Ha! Well, for certain, on a new installation, we would not have guessed there was already 7 gigs of Trash! Glad you got it

[KB3NRY]

Re: Partition Sizes and How to Set Them Up

Haha, yup! Thanks. Its a stupid mistake for sure, but I've learned from it. Now its time to settle into Kubuntu and get things how I want. :-D More questions to follow in other threads, I'm sure, but at least I've got this sorted out.