On Ext2,3 or 4, the file system reserves a certain number of blocks that can only be allocated by privileged processes (root?). When you do a df, this percentage is taken into account and counts against free space. On a mount that is not the root file system, and will never have any system process writing to it, you can free up some of this space for use by normal users. To do this, you can do (even on a mounted file system):
tune2fs -m 0 /dev/path/to/dev So on my machine I always mount /home from a separate file system. On my mythtv box I also keep my recordings on separate file systems from my root file system. Running this command on my home workstation got back 30 odd GB of previously unusable space, and on my myth box, I got back about 45 GB on each 1 TB disk. Thought I'd pass along this tip. /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
