I had root partition of 6 GB. suddenly after two weeks of use it was full. I have no idea how this happened.
I asked on IRC #suse help channel. They said it is perhaps temporary files and advised me to set max_days_in_tmp at cron. I set it to 1 (it was 0 before). After doing that my system did not start anymore neither in normal mode nor in failsafe.
repairing system with dvd did not help either…
I had to do a complete reinstall. Now my root partition is 11 GB. I am afraid this will happen again.
Please let me know what happened to my system and how to avoid next failure.
I am using 11.1 kde 4.1 64 bit
(i thought temporary files are cleaned by default, i had no problems using gnome a year before on other machine).
Also check for /var folder. I had an issue where zypper logs were about 2GB big! When there were no internet connection logs were filling with something like “Error checking for updates… no internet connection”. And after I made update to zypper, problem was resolved. OF course logs must be deleted manually as root.
I think you were too hasty in doing a fresh install and I doubt it was a real “total system failure”.
I do not think that your system became unusable just because you did change only that specific setting in sysconfig but because there was no more space.
Of course, if you did not have to set / configure a lot of things, maybe it was the easier solution to do a full install.
Did you try to start in runlevel 3 (before and/or after changing the system setting for tmp files), login as root in the command line interface and try to delete the ‘space eaters’?
The repair from the install dvd might not have succeded because there was no more space.
Well, all is history now but keep in mind if you run into trouble next time that there are a lot of ways of fixing.
I have no doubt there was a solution. But I am just a user. I could (after long research and reading forums etc) turn in runlevel 3 but… I would have no idea what to do next.
Now I know that next time I will be more careful listening to advises in #suse forum.
thanks.
AND just curious - why cleaning tmp files is not turn-on by default. Coz after some time disk space will come to an end… and at that point I would never ever persuade less advanced users (eg, my parents, who doesn’t even speak english good) to use opensuse any longer.
so, this is more philosophical question, but #suse irc people should NOT always say “wanna help? help yourself, use google” (that what i was told) because not everyone knows what to look for.
Thanks again for advices and your time. (I have turned on both settings. Seems that I was able to log-on again. Hopefully it will clean /tmp files as well :)).
I can tell you, that 6GB is too small. If you do not install “big” games, 12 GB should be enough. I’ve never (!) cleaned out /tmp on any machine since the late 90’s.
All this talk about zypper remains etc. This only happens if you kill the installer, something you should not do anyway. In general there is no need to ‘clean’ a linux system.
Actually they gave you the right advice as caf4926 noted.
We don’t have time to hold everyones hand - many of us work, have other activities and responsibilities and try to help on the side and the raw fact is that there’s simply not enough people there to give hand to the new folks.
You’re expecting business grade help from people who do help from little free time they may have. They’re not always right but I doubt people like you give a ****, you’re just after getting everything handed to you for free.
I really appreciate everything I am getting. And I do understand the circumstances how you deliver help.
Although more and more people are turning to open source these days. And they will not only need support but also an understanding they are new…
I do not expect somebody to hold my hand nor business level help. … just an understanding I cannot spent a week studying how system works (because I just dont know where to start).
It could be that(in between my work) I do sth that you benefit from (this is how the new world should work according to open source philosophy: you give me - I give you)
Yet again, sorry if I said sth wrong, I really appreciate your work. So lets smile, shake our hands and move on to enjoy Suse World.
Though it will not be easy to find your way though the docs here I believe that if you want to use linux / opensuse you need to spend some time with Documentation - openSUSE
Doing this will help you ‘ask the right question’ later on.
