Smallest possible root partition?

I'm trying to remotely (SSH) convert a machine from Ubuntu Server to Arch Linux.
The owner of the machine does not have any external storage available (e.g., flash drives) - he switched over to using Apple products almost exclusively and has been using cloud services and such to store everything.
The machine's partition table currently looks like:
# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000af6e3
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 499711 248832 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 501758 625141759 312320001 5 Extended
/dev/sda3 625141760 625142447 344 83 Linux
/dev/sda5 501760 625141759 312320000 8e Linux LVM
Disk /dev/mapper/Pauls--Ubuntu--Server-root: 317.8 GB, 317785636864 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38635 cylinders, total 620675072 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Disk /dev/mapper/Pauls--Ubuntu--Server-root doesn't contain a valid partition table
Disk /dev/mapper/Pauls--Ubuntu--Server-swap_1: 2009 MB, 2009071616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 244 cylinders, total 3923968 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Disk /dev/mapper/Pauls--Ubuntu--Server-swap_1 doesn't contain a valid partition table
# parted /dev/sda print
sda sda1 sda2 sda3 sda5
james@Pauls-Ubuntu-Server:~$ sudo parted /dev/sda print
Model: ATA WDC WD3200AAJS-0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 320GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 256MB 255MB primary ext2 boot
2 257MB 320GB 320GB extended
5 257MB 320GB 320GB logical lvm
3 320GB 320GB 352kB primary ext4
Would it be possible, via a creative combination of fstab and symlinks, to have a root partition of ~200 MB? What issues might arise?

Depends on what you have on it. If /var, /home, /usr, /boot, /etc, and /opt are on on their own partitions, you could probably get away with a root that was just a few MB. Each of those that is on the root partition will add to the requirements, generally /etc doesn't take too much, /boot can, depending on how many kernels you have, and /opt depends completely on whether you use any programs that get installed there; I have none. /srv is something else to consider if you run apache or something.
Of course, putting /usr and /var on their own partitions creates some other challenges, and those will be two of your larger dirs.
Last edited by Scimmia (2013-12-05 18:27:51)

Similar Messages

Corrupted root partition - a possible rescue?

Hello everyone, and thanks in advance for your help.
I have an Arch box which since a few hours ago contained also Ubuntu. Then I decided to increase the size of my Arch /home partition to solve a space issue, and since I didn't use Ubuntu anymore since I installed Arch, I thought I could remove the Ubuntu partitions to make some room for my /home.
So booted from an Ubuntu live cd and used gparted to remove the unwanted partitions. After the removal my partition table looked like this:
/dev/sda5 /
/dev/sda6 /boot
/dev/sda7 /home
/dev/sda8 /swap
/dev/sda9 /var
/dev/sda10 /tmp
/dev/sda11 /usr
/dev/sda12 /opt
All of the above partitions used by Arch.
Since the Ubuntu partitions were on the left of my Arch partitions, the / and /boot partitions had to be moved to the left in order for the /home partition to be grown.
So here's the problem: while moving the root partition the system froze. I had to reboot. Then, Grub wouldn't load Arch anymore, and obviously Ubuntu did no longer exist. I loaded the Ubuntu live CD again and checked the root partition via gparted, and found that it was corrupted and not even mountable.
And the question is: since all the other Arch partitions were left untouched, is there a possible way to reinstall only the needed files in the root partition? Unfortunately, I didn't backup the partitions, so yes, I think I pretty much screwed it beyond repair, but I figure asking doesn't hurt.
So thanks again for any help, and I hope I didn't miss any obvious wiki page or something. And sorry for my bad english too.

I'd boot up a LiveCD and fsck the partition if you haven't already.
If you have no luck there. I've not tried it, but I can't see any reason why you couldn't:
1) mkfs /dev/sda5 and mount it then unpack pacman and it's dependencies
2) mount /dev/sda9 ro (or under something other than /var to preserve it and point pacman to the path of the syncdb) and mount proc, sys and dev from the livecd.
3) chroot and 'pacman -S $(pacman -Qq)'
4) prune the contents of directories for which a mountpoint exists
Keep in mind that if you choose to go this way you could very well have two separate versions of packages installed (the latest under /, a previous version elsewhere). Unless you confirm that all versions are identical to that which was installed previously, you're likely to run into trouble.
Unless you have a reason not to, I think it would be better to have all partitions on their correct mountpoint before reinstalling packages.

Extending root partition

Hi
We have installed an Oracle VM server. We have 3 VM 's in it. In one of the machine we have installed two database.
The root partition is 5gb. which is now 99% full.
My question is, how can I extend the root partition.
this is result of df-h command:
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/xvda2 3.0G 2.9G 1.3M 100% /
/dev/xvda1 92M 37M 50M 43% /boot
tmpfs 5.4G 7.7M 5.4G 1% /dev/shm
/dev/xvdb1 237G 201G 24G 90% /u01
/dev/xvdd 296G 229G 53G 82% /u03
Appreciate your help
Thanks
Edited by: dba88 on 5 Jun, 2013 6:50 PM

Hi,
I have a littel experience with XEN, but when i think like a Linux administrator it is not possible to extend the disk xvda directly because the full size of disk xvda is used and you are not using the LVM concept.
i advice you to create a new partion in the disk xvdb (xvdb2) and move your home directory to this partition (you can add the mount in the fstab file).
I hope this can help you
Best Regards

Fsck on root partition without live CD

Hi,
For some unknown reason, I have to manually repair the root filesystem, but obviously every time I try, fsck tells me that the partition is mounted.
I know I could use some live CD, or pendrive, but turns out my live CD is VERY scratched, and my BIOS can't boot from a pendrive. Of course I could go and buy another cd, but there must be another way, so here I am.
Back in the old days, with sysv init, the only thing I had to do was enter the single-user-mode, and do the repair. Now, it is impossible, because "/" is always mounted. I've tried "systemd.unit=rescue.target" from grub, and "mount -o remount,ro /", I also prayed to my computer, but none of these things worked.
So, is there any way to fsck the root partition without using a pendrive or live cd?
Thank you.

You may not be able to directly boot from a pendrive, but you can boot to your bootloader. From the bootloader, it should be possible to start Arch from the pendrive. I am not at my Arch machine right now, and ssh'ing into it won't let me play in Grub, but I think Grub should be able to handle USB drives out-of-the-box. If not, I know the correct drivers can be installed to the boot partition.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Gr … _From_GRUB talks of how to modify the Grub menu to do this, but you should be able to hand-fly Grub by adapting this.

Attempting to resize my root partition on LVM

My root partition is currently full, so I want to resize it. I'm using LVM and the filesystem is ext4, so I assumed it should be easy enough. My plan was to reduce my /home to make space. However, when following the instructions in the wiki get the following error:
# resize2fs /dev/vg/syshome 450G
resize2fs 1.42.4 (12-June-2012)
Filesystem at /dev/vg/syshome is mounted on /home; on-line resizing required
resize2fs: On-line shrinking not supported
According to https://ext4.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ … esystem.3F however, online resizing should be possible.
What am I missing?
Last edited by phunni (2012-08-03 20:37:26)

First, install and use ncdu to check what's eating up all the space.
$ ncdu / --exclude /home --exclude /media
Maybe it's easily fixed, like a log file or something. Speaking of which, learn2logrotate. Here's my /etc/logrotate.conf.
Then if you still want to grow the root partition, try this: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/LV … cal_volume
Next time please specify in the title that it's about LVM.

LVM + LUKS + TRIM @ root partition

Hi.
I'm installing a fresh arch linux PC right now with LVM + LUKS and TRIM because i have one SSD , and UEFI mobo.
SSD has a physical partition for the /boot and the rest one used with LVM where a virtual group created called "lvmRootPool" which contains two logical volumes ("lvmRootPool-root" and "lvmRootPool-swap")
The lvmRootPool-swap was kept for swap and
the lvmRootPool-root for /.
Here comes the question. I want to enable TRIM for that disk (i know the security risk) and following this guide i have to add a specific line with discard keyword in /mnt/etc/crypttab (i'm before chroot). But when i open the /mnt/etc/crypttab it has a note saying
Do not list your root partition here, it must be set up beforehand by the initramfs (/etc/mkinitcpio.conf)
So what i supposed to do ? Should i add that line at crypttab file or not ?
lvmRootPool-root /dev/sda2 none luks,discard
Also , is it possible to use TRIM for swap ? I think that isn't but maybe something have been changed that i don't know.
Thank you.
Last edited by netpumber (2015-05-24 18:06:40)

maybe your missing pieces are: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/So … IM_for_LVM and https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dm … encryption
In a nutshell:
For encryption you need to change the kernel parameter in your bootloader, add encryption and resume hook to mkinitcpio.conf. If the hooks are at the right spots, it just works for swap as well.
For LVM passthru there is a setting described in the link above
You still need the discard flags in your fstab.

Copying root partition, what about dev

When I get a stable system I copy my good root partition to another disk, of course editing /boot/grub/menu.lst and /etc/fstab to use that partition so that I can boot into either my "stable" Arch or my "work in progress" Arch. I copy the root partition using rsync like this. Everything always works fine and I don't have any problem, but I do have a question: is it still necessary to
# Include
+ /dev/console
+ /dev/initctl
+ /dev/null
+ /dev/zero
AFAIK even these devices are now created dynamically by udev. Are they? Is it possible now to boot a system with an empty /dev directory?

falconindy wrote:Unnecessary. devtmpfs is mounted very early on top of /dev and managed by the kernel. "Back in the day" these nodes were needed for proper operation in early userspace before /dev was mounted.
I could see on my running system that the device nodes all have the same creation date and my question really was whether any devices had to exist in the filesystem before the devtmpfs was laid on top. And the guy from New Jersey with the big smile face says "unnecessary." Thanks.

[CLOSED + MOVED]Activate lvm2 on ext3 root partition

Hello guys,
I want to move to lvm2 on my arch installation, I haven't used any lvm before. So here's what I did so far:
1. shrink root partition using gparted to 7 gigabytes
2. created an lvm partition with size 8 gigabytes
3. migrated all files from the root partition to the lvm partition (in single user mode: # rsync -axSX / /newpartition)
4. added lvm2 hook before the filesystems hook in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf according to http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Con … #Using_lvm
5. regenerated the initramfs image using # sudo mkinitcpio -g /boot/kernel26.img
5a. added a grub entry with root=/dev/vg/root (I have no idea what the difference is between that and /dev/mapper/vg-root)
5b. edited /etc/fstab to use /dev/vg/root (again, no idea if /dev/mapper/vg-root would have been more appropriate) as root mountpoint "/"
6. Rebooted
7. Unfortunately, I cannot copy-paste the output, but upon reboot, the initramfs loads fine, it seems to recognize to lvm2 volume, but then says "trying to open console - not found" or something like that and then kernel panics on me.
Any ideas?
thanks!
CLOSED+MOVED:Moving this question elsewhere, as this topic seems too advanced for this subgroup.
Last edited by awayand (2010-01-13 12:44:11)

I used reiserfs for many years, many partitions, many distros and had no problems. Every now and then I'd use ext3 but there were a few issues. I got a new laptop in January and decided to take the plunge: shrunk vista, small ext2 /boot and the rest set up as an encrypted partition with LVM2, all logical volumes set up as ext4 (except swap!). I've been very impressed with ext4 stability.
Oh, and step (5) edit fstab to reflect the new file systems, make sure /etc/mtab doesn't exist.

I've lost the use of Appleworks in 10.9.2. Is it possible to partition the internal hard drive of my MacBook Pro and install an older Mac OS (10.6.8) on the second partition with OS 10.9.2 on the other?

I've lost the use of Appleworks by upgrading to 10.9.2.
Is it possible to partition the internal hard drive of my MacBook Pro and install an older Mac OS (10.6.8) on the second partition with OS 10.9.2 on the other? I'd like to be able to boot to the older OS when I need Appleworks and few other applications that aren't available on OS 10.9.2.
Any suggestions?
Thank you for your help.

Hello again, WZZZ,
Here's an update. I was successful in creating two partitions on my internal drive, and in installing OS 10.6.6 on the second partition, as per your guidence. I now have it up to 10.6.8 with all the security updates and AppleWorks. A great thing.
Some thoughts:
• The partitioning had one hitch; it failed at first. But once I "repaired" the disc with Disc Utility the partitioning went thru.
• The partitioning took a long time in 'resizing the partition.' A few hours I think it was. Lots of progress bar watching.
• If I had it to do again, I'd size the two partitions differently. My original data was occupying about 230 Gb of the 320 Gb disc. I made the new partitions share the space, about 230 and 75Gb. That left very little available space for the main disc. I ought to have put some breathing room in there. As it is, it's an incentive to clean up all those files, especially all those iTunes files. I now have about 10% of available space there and mean to continue deleting.
So, all in all a good project that got me where I wanted to go. Thank you for your help.
Appreciatively,
wallah

Copied my Arch root partition to a new one but I can't boot [SOLVED]

I booted to my arch live cd and copied my Arch / partition (/dev/sda1) to an empty partition (/dev/sda9) via a cp -a command. The new partition should now contains an exact copy of my old root partition. I also modified the /etc/fstab in the new partition to reflect the new block device for the root filesystem. I also added a line to my menu.lst to boot it. I didn't do something right because I get a kernel panic when grub boots into the new partition.
menu.lst entry:
title Arch Testing
root (hd0,8)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda9 ro quiet vga=773 acpi_enforce_resources=lax vga=773
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
Ideas?
EDIT: Just read this wiki page
The fix as root:
mount /dev/sda9 /mnt
cd /mnt/dev
rm console ; mknod -m 600 console c 5 1
rm null ; mknod -m 666 null c 1 3
rm zero ; mknod -m 666 zero c 1 5
mount -o bind /dev /mnt/dev
mount -t proc none /mnt/proc
mount -o bind /sys /mnt/sys
cd /
chroot /mnt /bin/bash
mkinitcpio -p kernel26
Last edited by graysky (2009-12-05 15:14:01)

Since you can't delete Apple IDs and having multiple Apple IDs can cause confusion, what you may want to do is rename your existing Apple ID to the new email (desired Apple ID). That would in effect do what you want, get rid of the old and give you the new.
See "Apple ID: Changing your Apple ID"
ivan

Root partition suddenly full while updating packages with Pacman

Hello
I'm not sure if this is a problem with Pacman, but my root partition seems to have become completely full while updating my system using pacman -Syu. Before updating anything, there seems to have been an update to a new version of Pacman (3.3.1-1) that needed to be installed before updating packages.
In the middle of the updates, I got this error:
error: error writing to file '/var/cache/pacman/pkg/openoffice-base-3.1.1-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz': No space left on device
Also, I don't know if this is related, but I got a lot of 'not found' errors after that.
The entire output from everything:
~ $ sudo pacman -Syu
Password:
:: Synchronizing package databases...
core 34.6K 101.4K/s 00:00:00 [#####################] 100%
extra 427.5K 394.3K/s 00:00:01 [#####################] 100%
community 374.7K 362.2K/s 00:00:01 [#####################] 100%
:: The following packages should be upgraded first :
pacman
:: Do you want to cancel the current operation
:: and upgrade these packages now? [Y/n] y
resolving dependencies...
looking for inter-conflicts...
Targets (1): pacman-3.3.1-1
Total Download Size: 0.60 MB
Total Installed Size: 2.10 MB
Proceed with installation? [Y/n] y
:: Retrieving packages from core...
pacman-3.3.1-1-x86_64 618.9K 455.6K/s 00:00:01 [#####################] 100%
checking package integrity...
(1/1) checking for file conflicts [#####################] 100%
(1/1) upgrading pacman [#####################] 100%
~ $ sudo pacman -Syu
:: Synchronizing package databases...
core is up to date
extra is up to date
community is up to date
:: Starting full system upgrade...
resolving dependencies...
looking for inter-conflicts...
Targets (42): taglib-extras-1.0.1-1 qt-4.5.3-2 liblastfm-0.3.0-4
loudmouth-1.4.3-1 libmtp-0.3.7-1.1 amarok-2.2.0-1 apr-1.3.9-1
db-4.8.24-1 apr-util-1.3.9-3 apache-2.2.13-3 bluez-4.54-1
python-2.6.3-1 dbus-python-0.83.0-2.1 device-mapper-2.02.53-1
eclipse-3.5.1-1 gpm-1.20.6-3 perl-5.10.1-3 groff-1.20.1-3
vim-7.2.266-1 gvim-7.2.266-2 heimdal-1.2.1-7 inkscape-0.46-13
iproute2-2.6.29-2 lib32-db-4.8.24-1 lib32-heimdal-1.2.1-7
libical-0.44-1 libsasl-2.1.23-2 lm_sensors-3.1.1-2
lvm2-2.02.53-1 nexuiz-data-2.5.2-1 nexuiz-2.5.2-1
redland-1.0.9-4 openoffice-base-3.1.1-2 pam-1.0.4-2
php-5.3.0-5 pstoedit-3.50-1 ruby-1.9.1_p243-2 soprano-2.3.1-1
texlive-bin-2009.4-1 texlive-core-2009.15574-1 wget-1.12-1
xchat-2.8.6-5
Total Download Size: 1354.95 MB
Total Installed Size: 2035.02 MB
Proceed with installation? [Y/n] y
:: Retrieving packages from core...
db-4.8.24-1-x86_64 4.7M 432.0K/s 00:00:11 [#####################] 100%
device-mapper-2.02.... 479.0K 287.9K/s 00:00:02 [#####################] 100%
gpm-1.20.6-3-x86_64 173.2K 243.7K/s 00:00:01 [#####################] 100%
perl-5.10.1-3-x86_64 13.5M 412.5K/s 00:00:33 [#####################] 100%
groff-1.20.1-3-x86_64 4.1M 365.7K/s 00:00:12 [#####################] 100%
heimdal-1.2.1-7-x86_64 2.8M 368.5K/s 00:00:08 [#####################] 100%
iproute2-2.6.29-2-x... 489.0K 303.8K/s 00:00:02 [#####################] 100%
libsasl-2.1.23-2-x86_64 118.5K 252.4K/s 00:00:00 [#####################] 100%
lvm2-2.02.53-1-x86_64 930.3K 327.3K/s 00:00:03 [#####################] 100%
pam-1.0.4-2-x86_64 537.8K 289.5K/s 00:00:02 [#####################] 100%
wget-1.12-1-x86_64 672.4K 308.0K/s 00:00:02 [#####################] 100%
:: Retrieving packages from extra...
qt-4.5.3-2-x86_64 26.9M 418.8K/s 00:01:06 [#####################] 100%
liblastfm-0.3.0-4-x... 223.4K 252.0K/s 00:00:01 [#####################] 100%
loudmouth-1.4.3-1-x... 80.8K 183.8K/s 00:00:00 [#####################] 100%
libmtp-0.3.7-1.1-x86_64 439.4K 309.5K/s 00:00:01 [#####################] 100%
amarok-2.2.0-1-x86_64 10.9M 486.0K/s 00:00:23 [#####################] 100%
apr-1.3.9-1-x86_64 328.5K 332.4K/s 00:00:01 [#####################] 100%
apr-util-1.3.9-3-x86_64 237.6K 322.3K/s 00:00:01 [#####################] 100%
error: failed retrieving file 'apache-2.2.13-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz' from archlinux.unixheads.org : Connection timed out
error: failed retrieving file 'apache-2.2.13-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz' from mirror.cs.vt.edu : Not Found
error: failed retrieving file 'apache-2.2.13-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz' from mirror.cs.vt.edu : File unavailable (e.g., file not found, no access)
bluez-4.54-1-x86_64 671.6K 361.7K/s 00:00:02 [#####################] 100%
python-2.6.3-1-x86_64 15.2M 442.0K/s 00:00:35 [#####################] 100%
dbus-python-0.83.0-... 177.4K 225.6K/s 00:00:01 [#####################] 100%
eclipse-3.5.1-1-x86_64 162.0M 457.1K/s 00:06:03 [#####################] 100%
vim-7.2.266-1-x86_64 8.6M 437.9K/s 00:00:20 [#####################] 100%
gvim-7.2.266-2-x86_64 1115.4K 216.9K/s 00:00:05 [#####################] 100%
inkscape-0.46-13-x86_64 18.4M 464.6K/s 00:00:41 [#####################] 100%
libical-0.44-1-x86_64 281.3K 283.7K/s 00:00:01 [#####################] 100%
lm_sensors-3.1.1-2-... 133.2K 228.9K/s 00:00:01 [#####################] 100%
redland-1.0.9-4-x86_64 307.4K 275.7K/s 00:00:01 [#####################] 100%
error: error writing to file '/var/cache/pacman/pkg/openoffice-base-3.1.1-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz': No space left on device
error: failed retrieving file 'openoffice-base-3.1.1-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz' from mirror.cs.vt.edu : Not Found
error: failed retrieving file 'openoffice-base-3.1.1-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz' from mirror.cs.vt.edu : File unavailable (e.g., file not found, no access)
error: error writing to file '/var/cache/pacman/pkg/php-5.3.0-5-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz': No space left on device
error: failed retrieving file 'php-5.3.0-5-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz' from mirror.cs.vt.edu : Not Found
error: failed retrieving file 'php-5.3.0-5-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz' from mirror.cs.vt.edu : File unavailable (e.g., file not found, no access)
error: error writing to file '/var/cache/pacman/pkg/pstoedit-3.50-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz': No space left on device
error: failed retrieving file 'pstoedit-3.50-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz' from mirror.cs.vt.edu : Not Found
error: failed retrieving file 'pstoedit-3.50-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz' from mirror.cs.vt.edu : File unavailable (e.g., file not found, no access)
error: error writing to file '/var/cache/pacman/pkg/ruby-1.9.1_p243-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz': No space left on device
error: failed retrieving file 'ruby-1.9.1_p243-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz' from mirror.cs.vt.edu : Not Found
error: failed retrieving file 'ruby-1.9.1_p243-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz' from mirror.cs.vt.edu : File unavailable (e.g., file not found, no access)
error: error writing to file '/var/cache/pacman/pkg/soprano-2.3.1-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz': No space left on device
error: failed retrieving file 'soprano-2.3.1-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz' from mirror.cs.vt.edu : Not Found
error: failed retrieving file 'soprano-2.3.1-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz' from mirror.cs.vt.edu : File unavailable (e.g., file not found, no access)
error: error writing to file '/var/cache/pacman/pkg/texlive-bin-2009.4-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz': No space left on device
error: failed retrieving file 'texlive-bin-2009.4-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz' from mirror.cs.vt.edu : Not Found
error: failed retrieving file 'texlive-bin-2009.4-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz' from mirror.cs.vt.edu : File unavailable (e.g., file not found, no access)
error: error writing to file '/var/cache/pacman/pkg/texlive-core-2009.15574-1-any.pkg.tar.gz': No space left on device
error: failed retrieving file 'texlive-core-2009.15574-1-any.pkg.tar.gz' from mirror.cs.vt.edu : Not Found
error: failed retrieving file 'texlive-core-2009.15574-1-any.pkg.tar.gz' from mirror.cs.vt.edu : File unavailable (e.g., file not found, no access)
error: error writing to file '/var/cache/pacman/pkg/xchat-2.8.6-5-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz': No space left on device
error: failed retrieving file 'xchat-2.8.6-5-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz' from mirror.cs.vt.edu : Not Found
error: failed retrieving file 'xchat-2.8.6-5-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz' from mirror.cs.vt.edu : File unavailable (e.g., file not found, no access)
warning: failed to retrieve some files from extra
error: failed to commit transaction (File unavailable (e.g., file not found, no access))
Errors occurred, no packages were upgraded.
~ $
Also, I haven't restarted my system yet. Should I try and see what happens?
Thanks!

This happened to me recently. I could not restart my laptop properly due to lack of space on my root partition.
The error during boot was along the lines of:-
Starting D-BUS system messagebus - Failed
Failed to start message bus: Failed to close "var/run/dbus.pid": No space left on drive
Hardware Abstraction Layer - Failed
everything else during the boot was as normal till I started to type in my username - but couldn't because the keyboard was inactive.
I used a Wolvix live CD to investigate and found a QT4 file in the packman cache which was 6.9GB in size (compared to the normal 27mb size). Once that was deleted and the drive/partition error checked everything was back to normal. So before you reboot I would definitely recommend clearing any oversize file out of your packman cache, or just clearing the whole cache.
Last edited by Nixie (2009-10-05 17:16:13)

How big of a root partition should I have?

I am new to Archlinux and Linux in general. I recently installed my first Arch system but I have not yet installed a desktop environment for I am trying to learn the command line. I was planning on using this weekend to set up a desktop environment but I cannot decide which one to use, so I will try them all (or at least Gnome and Xfce). My question is how big of a root partition should I have to give me ample space to play around including having more than one desktop environment installed at once. I currently have a 20 GB hard drive with my root partition set to 4 GB.
Thank You
Morgan Smith

If you care, here is mine:
Name Flags Part Type FS Type [Label] Size (MB)
sda1 Boot, NC Primary Linux ext2 41.13
sda2 Primary Linux swap / Solaris 271.44
sda3 Primary Linux 39851.49
sda4 Primary Linux 39859.71
Where /dev/sda1 is /boot,
/dev/sda2 is swap,
/dev/sda3 is root, and
/dev/sda4 is /home

[solved] unable to boot to the root partition on my new (usb) HDD

hello,
i got a "unable to determine major/minor number of root device" error message when the system try to find the root partition (after it succefully boot on the boot partition).
Shuttle XPC SB65G2 (Mainboard FB65), usb HDD: Intenso INIC-1608L, Linux ctkarch 2.6.37-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT, grub legacy.
sdb1: /boot (ext2), sdb2: swap, sdb3: / (ext4), sdb4: /home (ext4)
of course i have a kernel compiled with usb in HOOKS in mkinitcpio.conf.
i tried to install with sdb1: / (ext4), sdb2: swap, sdb3: /home (ext4)
but i got another error: it can't find the file /dev/blabla (root partition) (after it succefully boot on the partition!).
at last i found the solution: i have to comment "root (hdx,x)" in menu.lst for grub legacy!:
# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
# root (hd1,0)
kernel ... by-uuid...
you don't need this line when you define by uuid, by label, or so...
it seems this line perturbs the behavior of the system.
if this can help...

You do not need the "raw". If you do:
ok devalias
it will show you how other aliases are formed
do ls -l /dev/dsk/c0t2d0s0 and you'll see the "non-raw" device path
ok reset
will "lock" your alias in NVRAM but it will attempt to boot from boot-device (normally disk) the next time unless auto-boot? is set to false
ok setenv auto-boot? false
My guess is that it could not understand "raw", reset, and booted from boot-device.
You can:
ok setenv auto-boot? false
ok nvunalias altboot
ok nvalias altboot /pci@1f,0/ide@d/dad@2,0
ok reset
ok boot altboot

I have Lion as my current and main OS. Is it possible to partition part of my hard drive for Snow Leopard?

I have Lion as my current and main OS. Is it possible to partition part of my hard drive for Snow Leopard? I'm good on partitioning but when I insert the Snow Leopard install disk a message tells me I can't run the install program because I currently have Lion installed... obviously. Have I gone about this the wrong way? Do I need to boot the computer using the Snow Leopard install disk instead of my main HD?

Apple will never update that as for the most part it is true, and the fact that they really don't want you to run older OS X versions (for whatever reason).
Now this probably won't work with the next line of MBPs and MBAs that come out. But it is for the current builds.
But as I stated you need one of the lastest builds of SL for it to even boot the system.
It won't work with the retail 10.6.3 DVD disc. That version does not have the correct drivers for the newest Mac's.

Can't get lvm/luks to boot - cannot find root partition

Hi,
I'm trying to get a dm-crypt on top of lvm to boot but without success so far. I followed http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Sys … r_dm-crypt and http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ins … AID_or_LVM, everything works fine (I can mount the partition) but when I try to boot from it, it cannot find the crypted partition and fails.
USELVM="yes"
HOOKS="base udev usb usbinput lvm2 encrypt filesystems"
root=/dev/mapper/sda2 cryptdevice=/dev/sda2:root2-lvol0 ro
jan@jan ~/src/xf86-video-ati $ ll /dev/mapper/
insgesamt 0
crw-rw---- 1 root root 10, 62 21. Feb 2008 control
brw------- 1 root disk 254, 0 21. Feb 2008 root
brw------- 1 root disk 254, 1 21. Feb 2008 root2-lvol0
brw------- 1 root disk 254, 2 21. Feb 2008 sda2
/dev/mapper/root is my current encrypted / without lvm
The boot process successfully identifies the lvm /dev/mapper/root2-lvol0 and continues with hook 'encrypt' but doesn't ask me for a passphrase but goes on to hook 'filesystems' and fails then because it can't mount the correct root-partition obviously.
There's only /dev/mapper/root2-lvol0 and /dev/mapper/control when I'm in the rescue sh from initrd.
Anyone got that combination to work?
- Jan

Reboot, at the sound of the chime (not before) depress the option key, when the startup manager appears choose OSX.

Smallest possible root partition?

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