Re: [SLUG] Re: Merry Christmas and why did I get a message saying I had <4% of my HDD space left?
When you had this problem did you do a "df" to check out all your filesystems. Particularly if you have a small filesystem for holding /tmp (it might be infact using tmpfs), then a reboot would fix the problem. If your mail program needs to use temporary files for moving things around, running out of /tmp would mean bad things could occur. Regards, Martin martinvisse...@gmail.com On Sat, Dec 27, 2008 at 2:21 PM, elliott-brennan wrote: > Thanks everyone. I've a bit to chew on and so will > get to it. > > I had a message underneath the '<4%' message of > which I could only read a couple of words. I've > just had the same message. Thunderbird would not > down load new mail: > > 'Unable to write the email to the mailbox. Make > sure the file system allows you write privileges, > and you have enough disk space to copy the mailbox' > > I tried one googled suggestion which was to > 'chown' the /home//.mozilla-thunderbird file > > Simultaneously, when I went to use Konqueror as a > super user > > kdesu konqueror > > I got a message saying it couldn't connect to > x-server : 0 > > manually 'chown'-ing the Thunderbird file didn't > work. I ended up rebooting and it seems fine. > > One thing I have noticed is that each time I've > used my bluetooth adapter, I've had other odd > problems (eg. shutdown only occurs if I press any > key on the keyboard, as if after going to shutdown > it requires 'assistance' to close. > > All of this is quite odd. Dapper was very stable - > machine would be on for weeks at a time. 8.04 > seems rather less so. This is rather frustrating > and makes me wonder whether I should shut the > machine down each night. > > These experiences are rather, > urm..Windows like :) > > Again, any help is most appreciated. > > Regards, > > Patrick > > -- > Registered GNU/Linux User 368634 > -- > SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ > Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html > -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Merry Christmas and why did I get a message saying I had <4% of my HDD space left?
Thanks everyone. I've a bit to chew on and so will get to it. I had a message underneath the '<4%' message of which I could only read a couple of words. I've just had the same message. Thunderbird would not down load new mail: 'Unable to write the email to the mailbox. Make sure the file system allows you write privileges, and you have enough disk space to copy the mailbox' I tried one googled suggestion which was to 'chown' the /home//.mozilla-thunderbird file Simultaneously, when I went to use Konqueror as a super user kdesu konqueror I got a message saying it couldn't connect to x-server : 0 manually 'chown'-ing the Thunderbird file didn't work. I ended up rebooting and it seems fine. One thing I have noticed is that each time I've used my bluetooth adapter, I've had other odd problems (eg. shutdown only occurs if I press any key on the keyboard, as if after going to shutdown it requires 'assistance' to close. All of this is quite odd. Dapper was very stable - machine would be on for weeks at a time. 8.04 seems rather less so. This is rather frustrating and makes me wonder whether I should shut the machine down each night. These experiences are rather, urm..Windows like :) Again, any help is most appreciated. Regards, Patrick -- Registered GNU/Linux User 368634 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: Subject:,[SLUG] MP3 player mounting on old machine but not new machine
Have a similar problem with an 8 gb thumb drive. Haven't worried too much about it as I have several others, but so far I've put the "problem" down to the mobo not fitting tight enough against the back-plate of the case, thus that particular thumb-drive doesn't quite fit in deep enough for a good connection. Just a thought. Bill Subject: [SLUG] MP3 player mounting on old machine but not new machine From: elliott-brennan Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 15:21:34 +1100 To: slug@slug.org.au To: slug@slug.org.au Hi all, After the HDD died in my machine, I took the opportunity to upgrade to a new machine, so built a Quad-core 2.8Ghz machine with an ASUS P5QC mobo. We bought our daughter a Samsung Pebble (very small digital music device. Very cute). It mounts easily on the machine I built for her (1.2? Ghz P4 Abit mobo - I think). I've installed GOS on it. Very pretty looking and an easy install. Now, on her machine, using the USB adapter this little Pebble shows up as a mass storage device. Easy. GOS uses Ubuntu 8.04 as it's base. My machine has Kubuntu 8.04 installed. It does not see the Pebble at all. dmesg shows no activity when I plug in the device. lsusb does not show the drive. fdisk -l does not show the drive Searching /dev for /sd named devices does not show the device either. I've also tried this device in my wife's eeepc. Nada. Another thing, in case it's relevant. The device has three partitions (can't remember what two are called, but one is called 'music'). I'm a bit clueless at this moment. Anyone with any ideas? I'm assuming it has something to do with the older machine have the older model USB adapters, but given the device is brand new (they're quite new to the market) I'd have thought I'd have had more problems with the device on the old machine. Regards and a Happy New Year, Patrick -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] MP3 player mounting on old machine but not new machine
I don't think it would be a module if there is no activity in dmesg. I would look towards more a hardware issue, have you tried a known-good usb port, do a sudo dmesg -c pre inserting it to get a clear picture? On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 10:46 PM, Ken Wilson wrote: > Hi Patrick > I sometimes have similar problems with a usb memory stick, and the > following command fixes it. Its about one module being substituted for > another, but others will have better explanations. > #if usb disk doesnt work try this command in terminal. > > sudo modprobe -r ehci_hcd > > cheers > Ken > > > elliott-brennan wrote: > >> Hi all, >> >> After the HDD died in my machine, I took the >> opportunity to upgrade to a new machine, so built >> a Quad-core 2.8Ghz machine with an ASUS P5QC mobo. >> >> We bought our daughter a Samsung Pebble (very >> small digital music device. Very cute). It mounts >> easily on the machine I built for her (1.2? Ghz P4 >> Abit mobo - I think). >> >> I've installed GOS on it. Very pretty looking and >> an easy install. Now, on her machine, using the >> USB adapter this little Pebble shows up as a mass >> storage device. Easy. GOS uses Ubuntu 8.04 as it's >> base. >> >> My machine has Kubuntu 8.04 installed. It does not >> see the Pebble at all. >> >> dmesg shows no activity when I plug in the device. >> >> lsusb does not show the drive. >> >> fdisk -l does not show the drive >> >> Searching /dev for /sd named devices does not show >> the device either. >> >> I've also tried this device in my wife's eeepc. Nada. >> >> Another thing, in case it's relevant. The device >> has three partitions (can't remember what two are >> called, but one is called 'music'). >> >> I'm a bit clueless at this moment. Anyone with any >> ideas? I'm assuming it has something to do with >> the older machine have the older model USB >> adapters, but given the device is brand new >> (they're quite new to the market) I'd have thought >> I'd have had more problems with the device on the >> old machine. >> >> Regards and a Happy New Year, >> >> Patrick >> > -- > SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ > Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html > -- Regards Morgan Storey,A+, MCSE:Security. IT Security Specialist. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Merry Christmas and why did I get a message saying I had <4% of my HDD space left?
Daniel Pittman wrote: > Jonathan writes: >> On Thu, 25 Dec 2008 11:42:56 pm Daniel Pittman wrote: [...] > You can use lsof(8) or the content of /proc//fd to find deleted > files held open — though, keep in mind that things do this for > legitimate reasons, not just because something has gone wrong. Probably tis clear-cut to those technically inclined but I'll just add here that lsof(8) spits list of opened files but does so only if the current user (getuid()) has access to the process and their subsequent list of opened files. To dump a complete list of open files using lsof, invoke it as a super user. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Merry Christmas and why did I get a message saying I had <4% of my HDD space left?
Jonathan writes: > On Thu, 25 Dec 2008 11:42:56 pm Daniel Pittman wrote: [...] >> Well, I can't explain why you got the warning, or if it is a genuine >> warning or a bug, but I can perhaps shed some light on a corner of Unix >> that might explain things: >> >> Under Unix, if a process opens a file, then deletes it, without closing >> the file, it remains in existence until the process exits. It can, for >> example, continue to write to the file. >> >> One of the traditional ways to run out of space on a Unix machine, and >> to confuse the heck out of a new sysadmin, is based on this: >> >> You start a process that, for some reason, spews a huge amount of junk >> out, such as bogus warnings or over-verbose logging, and send that to a >> file. >> >> Then, the new admin notices the huge file after a while and deletes it, >> but the process doesn't close the file — it continues to write it in the >> background. >> >> Give it a little time and the admin starts to wonder why there is only a >> few percent of disk space free, but nothing shows up using it with du(1) >> and friends... >> >> Worse, a reboot cures this — because as soon as the daemon stops running >> the file system will free the file, returning the disk space to the free >> pool... > > Not my problem, but interesting! Is there then such a utility that > shows actual disk usage and one which shows effective disk usage, ass > mentioned by your email above. df(1) will show you the free space in the filesystem, which will include space used by deleted but in-use inodes. du(1), which walks directories, will only show you files with some link left, somewhere. You can use lsof(8) or the content of /proc//fd to find deleted files held open — though, keep in mind that things do this for legitimate reasons, not just because something has gone wrong. Regards, Daniel -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] MP3 player mounting on old machine but not new machine
Hi Patrick I sometimes have similar problems with a usb memory stick, and the following command fixes it. Its about one module being substituted for another, but others will have better explanations. #if usb disk doesnt work try this command in terminal. sudo modprobe -r ehci_hcd cheers Ken elliott-brennan wrote: Hi all, After the HDD died in my machine, I took the opportunity to upgrade to a new machine, so built a Quad-core 2.8Ghz machine with an ASUS P5QC mobo. We bought our daughter a Samsung Pebble (very small digital music device. Very cute). It mounts easily on the machine I built for her (1.2? Ghz P4 Abit mobo - I think). I've installed GOS on it. Very pretty looking and an easy install. Now, on her machine, using the USB adapter this little Pebble shows up as a mass storage device. Easy. GOS uses Ubuntu 8.04 as it's base. My machine has Kubuntu 8.04 installed. It does not see the Pebble at all. dmesg shows no activity when I plug in the device. lsusb does not show the drive. fdisk -l does not show the drive Searching /dev for /sd named devices does not show the device either. I've also tried this device in my wife's eeepc. Nada. Another thing, in case it's relevant. The device has three partitions (can't remember what two are called, but one is called 'music'). I'm a bit clueless at this moment. Anyone with any ideas? I'm assuming it has something to do with the older machine have the older model USB adapters, but given the device is brand new (they're quite new to the market) I'd have thought I'd have had more problems with the device on the old machine. Regards and a Happy New Year, Patrick -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Merry Christmas and why did I get a message saying I had <4% of my HDD space left?
On Thu, 25 Dec 2008 11:42:56 pm Daniel Pittman wrote: > elliott-brennan writes: > > I got home (from a very good day) and found my machine with a message > > on the screen (in front of Thunderbird) saying that I had less that 4% > > of my /home space left and did I want to start Konqueror to resolve > > this. > > > > Of course, I said yes. Then the whole GUI froze and I ended up > > rebooting and logging-in in safe mode. On checking the disk space: > > > > df -h > > > > I found I had used 79% of my /home space (500G SATA drive with 412G on > > /home). > > [...] > > > Can someone please provide me a bit of an idea as to what this may > > have been about? > > Well, I can't explain why you got the warning, or if it is a genuine > warning or a bug, but I can perhaps shed some light on a corner of Unix > that might explain things: > > Under Unix, if a process opens a file, then deletes it, without closing > the file, it remains in existence until the process exits. It can, for > example, continue to write to the file. > > One of the traditional ways to run out of space on a Unix machine, and > to confuse the heck out of a new sysadmin, is based on this: > > You start a process that, for some reason, spews a huge amount of junk > out, such as bogus warnings or over-verbose logging, and send that to a > file. > > Then, the new admin notices the huge file after a while and deletes it, > but the process doesn't close the file — it continues to write it in the > background. > > Give it a little time and the admin starts to wonder why there is only a > few percent of disk space free, but nothing shows up using it with du(1) > and friends... > > Worse, a reboot cures this — because as soon as the daemon stops running > the file system will free the file, returning the disk space to the free > pool... > > Regards, > Daniel Hi Daniel, Not my problem, but interesting! Is there then such a utility that shows actual disk usage and one which shows effective disk usage, ass mentioned by your email above. cheers Jon -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] MP3 player mounting on old machine but not new machine
Hi Alan, I'll have a look. It's pretty weird but may the GOS people have included something in the standard install??? Thanks. Hope Christmas has been good to you so far and the New Year is better than the last :)) Regards, Patrick Alan L Tyree wrote: > On Fri, 26 Dec 2008 16:40:02 +1100 > elliott-brennan wrote: > >> Hi Jake, >> > > Hey Patrick, > Maybe a missing module? Doesn't seem likely since your other USB > devices seem to work, but compare the modules loaded in the old machine > with those in the new. > > Cheers, > Alan > >> Regards, >> >> Patrick -- Registered GNU/Linux User 368634 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
