Hard drive full message

**toastrack** · 10-Sep-2009, 11:29

I keep getting a warning that my hard drive is nearly (99%) full and that I should clear some files. This is a 24GB partition, and looking at the stuff on it there's no way that can addup to more than 4 to 5 GB. I'm looking at hidden files as well, so (a) what / where are these files and (b) what can I do about this please?

**hcvv** · 10-Sep-2009, 12:05

I do not know who gives you the warning, but mentioning "hard drive" is nonsense. A partition can be full. When you do

Code:

df

you will be presented with the mounted partitions and their percentage which is free. This wil be the first step: finding out which partition/filesystem.

**toastrack** · 11-Sep-2009, 03:12

Oops! Yes, I meant partition. Sorry, it's that M$ legacy again!

**toastrack** · 11-Sep-2009, 03:15

Just run df, and find it's my /home partition that's 99% full. As I said, I can't find anywhere near that amount of stuff as files looking with konquerer.

**stakanov** · 11-Sep-2009, 03:21

I had a similar problem time ago. Do you use KDE3.5?
Generally it is a malfunction of the recycle bin.
Look here /home/toastrak/.local/share/Trash and see if there are files that cannot be deleted (often because you deleted them as root or there is an attribute trouble). Watch out not to delete the info file that you need for the animated icon.

**hcvv** · 11-Sep-2009, 03:27

I do not use GUI tools for this sort of debugging. Just use a terminal and use

Code:

su -

enter roots possword

Code:

cd /home
du -k *

It will give you a list of the flies and directories in /home with the amount of space used (for directories including all that is IN that directory). Look for the big ones. When you are the only user that normaly uses the system it will be your home directory (but it could be another one!).
Then cd down to /home/<suspected-dir> and repeat the

Code:

du -k *

repeat until you got them.

**stakanov** · 11-Sep-2009, 03:48

Good advice, help me out. Why the "minus" behind su (I once knew but I forgot).
And since we are there: this command du gives a enormous amount of information. Any possibility to sort the results by size (i.e. to show the biggest ones last)?

**hcvv** · 11-Sep-2009, 04:23

What about:

Code:

man su
man du

to get more info and then asking when you do still have questions?

BTW, instead of man you can also use Konqueror with #su (short for man:su) in the address field. It makes the man pages much more readable.

But yes, it might be better to use

Code:

du -sk *

to get info about one levell at the time.

**stakanov** · 11-Sep-2009, 05:11

Konqueror with #su (short for man:su) in the address field. It makes the man pages much more readable.
You see, that was a BRILLIANT piece of information. Thanks.

**toastrack** · 11-Sep-2009, 06:06

Using the previous suggestion with the GUI I got some space by deleting all the trashed files.

But the
du -k * command scrolled down fast so I couldn't read it. Should I have added a key to make it go page by page?

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