no space for updates - need to repartition?!

[lknee]

I recently installed Ubuntu and got a message that I couldn't install updates because there was no disk space remaining. I checked this out and it looks like my file system thing is 100% full. I have 64 GB space available according to the Disk Usage Analyzer. My files, etc are currently split between 2 partitions that were on my computer when I got it (Vista).

So how can I safely allocate more space to allow Ubuntu to update?

Info that might help...

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda5 2.3G 2.3G 0 100% /
tmpfs 880M 0 880M 0% /lib/init/rw
varrun 880M 112K 880M 1% /var/run
varlock 880M 0 880M 0% /var/lock
udev 880M 160K 880M 1% /dev
tmpfs 880M 84K 880M 1% /dev/shm
lrm 880M 2.4M 878M 1% /lib/modules/2.6.28-11-generic/volatile
/dev/mmcblk0p1 953M 48K 953M 1% /media/disk
/dev/sda3 68G 35G 33G 51% /media/DATA
/dev/sda2 70G 40G 30G 58% /media/ACER

[bigtomrodney]

You root partition is quite small and I see you don't have a seperate /tmp partition. You can probably clean a lot of the files out of /tmp but it's better to do it in single user mode, i.e. boot into repair mode for that to be on the safe side.

A more standard piece of maintenance is to clean out package files from your cache. Every update and package you install caches the deb packages for future use. Run this command

sudo apt-get clean

This should buy you some space.

[lknee]

You root partition is quite small and I see you don't have a seperate /tmp partition. You can probably clean a lot of the files out of /tmp but it's better to do it in single user mode, i.e. boot into repair mode for that to be on the safe side.

A more standard piece of maintenance is to clean out package files from your cache. Every update and package you install caches the deb packages for future use. Run this command

sudo apt-get clean

This should buy you some space.

I ran sudo apt-get clean but nothing happened... Can I make a /tmp patition? I have 6 GB of "unallocated space" but I don't know how to access it.

[Jonathan183]

Safest way is to backup data then resize partitions. Do the partition resize from a live CD, it is much safer than trying to resize a live filesystem. You can get Ubuntu to run on a small partition but I would try to free up 15 to 20GB for the root partition. A separate home partition may also be worth considering ... in which case 10GB for root will do.

If you want further advice on repartitioning its probably best for you to post the output of

sudo fdisk -l

so we can see the disk partition structure.

[lknee]

sudo fdisk -l output:

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x9023406d

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 1275 10240000 27 Unknown
/dev/sda2 * 1275 10367 73028608 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 10367 19132 70401880 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 19133 19457 2610562+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 19133 19435 2433816 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 19436 19457 176683+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 998 MB, 998768640 bytes
20 heads, 51 sectors/track, 1912 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1020 * 512 = 522240 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/mmcblk0p1 1 1913 975295+ 6 FAT16