Lubuntu... FAIL, big time...

[ffutures]

And it started out looking so good...

Ran into exactly the same problem with Lubuntu as I did with Ubuntu - the free space on the 4gb drive disappeared as soon as I started to update programs etc. It also showed some weird quirks e.g. icons disappearing from the task bar, and I've decided I just don't like the Chrome browser, and there wasn't room for Firefox.

What I've ended up doing (hopefully as a reasonably permanent fix) is install Linux Mint version 9 (which will be supported for the next year or so) rather than the latest version, and hope that sooner or later I will figure out how to do an install that uses the fracking 16gb drive which actually has some space... It's a version I like, and it was rock solid on the small netbook the Asus is replacing.

Meanwhile, is there any way I can move my home folder at least to this drive, and set things up so that programs will know to use it?

Comments

[pengshui-master.livejournal.com]

Not sure about the quirks, but have you run 'apt-get clean'? this deletes the download installers and updates.

The trick o f moving any directory is to use tar, I use the following at the command line to do the copy:

(umask 0; tar -C -cf- . | tar -C -xf- )

You can then let the rest of the system know about the moved home folder either by using usermod, or putting symlink in place to 'redirect' the path (using ln -s).

eg.
mv olddir olddir.old
ln -s newdir olddir

(You should use fullpaths for the ln command, in this case)

use man to get more info in the commands I mentioned.

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

I find rsync -av much superior to tar myself

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Tried apt-get clean, didn't help much - I think Ubuntu (and its variants) clean up after themselves reasonably well.

Hate to say it, but I really don't understand that explanation of tar at all - I think I'll have to swot up a bit.

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

mv or rsync -av and ln -s all the directories you can, just be careful that the 16gb drive is mounted when they are likely to be accessed.

4Gb is really too small for the latest *buntu* releases

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I think I need an idiots guide of some sort. Any recommendations?

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

Not really. Moving home is trivial, the others needs a little care. I suggest googling to see if other have space saving suggestions for netbooks, or I could have a quick go if you bring it to Gwen's next week

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I should be along, I'll try to remember to bring it.

[turol.livejournal.com]

It's possible to move home to another partition but it's far from trivial. Optimally home would be set up in the right place during installation. I'm not sure if Mint allows this. Debian at least does but then again it's a Real Distro instead of a toy :)

Basically you'd make sure no-one is using home by logging in as root or using a livecd. This is hard if Mint behaves like Ubuntu and doesn't set up root password. You need to set up the other partition so it can be mounted. Then just copy or move (I prefer copy with rsync) the data over and mount the new home over old. Set it up so it's maintained across reboots and test. After it works you can go remove the old home from the root partition if you need space there.

If all this was incomprehensible to you, you should ask a local Linux guru to do it for you. Or just reinstall and set it up during installation.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I think I've been spoiled by Windows, where installing software to another drive is trivially easy. But I really don't trust the stability of Windows on something like the Asus, so I'll just have to persevere with Linux.

[armb.livejournal.com]

Or you can just leave /home where it is and edit /etc/passwd to put your home directory on a new /home2 (or /disk2/home, or whatever's most convenient).
Then you don't have to worry about when it's safe to unmount the existing /home.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

OK, pretend you are talking to the village idiot here (which in Linux terms you are). How do I do this?