[SOLVED] Could not start Ubuntu because root partition(/) full

4
March 27th, 2010 Permalink

I upgraded my packages in my Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Beta 1 installation and it required a restart. I did not realize that there was no space left on the root partition (I have two partitions, root / and /home). I restarted and was not able to login. I got a message saying something like [...]

I upgraded my packages in my Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Beta 1 installation and it required a restart. I did not realize that there was no space left on the root partition (I have two partitions, root / and /home). I restarted and was not able to login. I got a message saying something like

The configuration defaults for GNOME power manager have not been installed correctly. Please contact your computer administrator

in the Login window. I tried logging in again, but I again got blank screen and was logged back out. Nor did the message make any sense.

I pressed Ctrl+Alt+F1 and logged in there and then tried to upgrade the packages using

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

There were upgrades available and installed them I saw mandb complaining about the lack of disk space. I then freed some space by deleting some files I had kept in the root directory and pressed Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart and it booted in without problems. If you face this problem and want to free some space, you can use

sudo apt-get clean

which will free the space used by package archives cache which are located at /var/cache/apt/archives and it should boot without problems.


If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
  • Kenenna

    Thanks for ur reply but do u need an internet connection? its not working for me and im stuck on that login screen! my internet connection is wifi and i dont know how to connect via the text based ubuntu interface

    • Guest

      Even I have encountered similar issue, I was trying to move some files from root folder, but I was unable to move it out from root partition.
      Could you please guide me, if you have already fixed this issue. 

    • http://www.khattam.info _khAttAm_

      No, just a sudo apt-get clean on the terminal should free up space so that you can boot into Gnome.

  • admin