Arch Linux

4on6

Member

Registered: 2011-10-05

Posts: 172

[SOLVED] Root partitiion full - gparted needed, but how?

Hi list,
I accepted the default partition settings during Archlinux installation a few month ago - a bad idea, since now my root partion (7.4 GB) is already full, but my home partion has plenty of space (9% used). And I don't even use a deskop - only StumpWM.

I cleaned the pacman cache to make the system usable again, but I need to make the root partition bigger. Here is what df shows:

rootfs           7662396  6461292    816752   89% /
/dev              991972        0    991972    0% /dev
/run              994892      200    994692    1% /run
/dev/sda3        7662396  6461292    816752   89% /
shm               994892      132    994760    1% /dev/shm
tmpfs             994892        8    994884    1% /tmp
/dev/sda1         101086    18466     77401   20% /boot
/dev/sda4      235860396 18324928 205728500    9% /home

Its the usr and the var folders that take up almost all the space in the root partition.

Now I thought about increasing the size of sda3 to 20 (30?) GB, taking the space away from sda4. I want to use gparted for that, but the manual says the manipulated partitions must be unmounted. However, with gparted being an X application, both partition sda3 and sda4 are busy once gparted is started and can't be unmounted anymore.

What to do?

Last edited by 4on6 (2012-02-13 12:37:29)

Gcool

Member

Registered: 2011-08-16

Posts: 1,456

Re: [SOLVED] Root partitiion full - gparted needed, but how?

You can't resize the root partition while booted in your existing Arch install obviously. One way of doing it would be to boot from the arch install medium (or any other livecd that you might have lying around), and use "parted" to resize the partition.

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Burninate!

DSpider

Member

From: Romania

Registered: 2009-08-23

Posts: 2,273

Re: [SOLVED] Root partitiion full - gparted needed, but how?

/var/log/ probably takes up the most space.

Learn2logrotate.

Here's my /etc/logrotate.conf setup, which will bring the size down considerably:

# see "man logrotate" for details
# rotate log files weekly
weekly

# keep 2 weeks worth of backlogs
rotate 2

# restrict maximum size of log files
size 100M

# create new (empty) log files after rotating old ones
create

# uncomment this if you want your log files compressed
compress

You could also move the pacman cache to your home dir. Uncomment this from your /etc/pacman.conf, and change it accordingly:

CacheDir    = /var/cache/pacman/pkg/

If you still have these problems 2 days from now, you should consider using Parted Magic (or GParted Live) to resize the root partition. You can even run them from a USB stick.

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"How to Succeed with Linux"

I have made a personal commitment not to reply in topics that start with a lowercase letter. Proper grammar and punctuation is a sign of respect, and if you do not show any, you will NOT receive any help (at least not from me).

/dev/zero

Member

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2011-10-20

Posts: 1,247

Re: [SOLVED] Root partitiion full - gparted needed, but how?

The gparted livecd worked well the last time I used it.

In future, I trust you'll consider using LVMs

4on6

Member

Registered: 2011-10-05

Posts: 172

Re: [SOLVED] Root partitiion full - gparted needed, but how?

OK, thanks everybody, the obvious (use another boot medium) did not come into my mind. And yes - /var/log/ is quite big, but /usr ist even bigger, and there are more programs left to install.

Last edited by 4on6 (2012-02-13 12:37:05)

4on6

Member

Registered: 2011-10-05

Posts: 172

Re: [SOLVED] Root partitiion full - gparted needed, but how?

Although this question is generally solved, I have one related question:

what about Symlinks between the root partition and the home partition?
I could move the packman package cache and the log archive (e.g.) to my home folder and symlink to their old positions and gain a lot of space in the root partition.

But - does the caching and archiving still work when there are symlinks?

cheers

Gcool

Member

Registered: 2011-08-16

Posts: 1,456

Re: [SOLVED] Root partitiion full - gparted needed, but how?

No need to make symlinks for that. In your pacman.conf, you can simply change the "CacheDir = /some/path" and 'LogFile = /some/path" to a directory in your /home partition.

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Burninate!