Problem with low space, lost printer, no ping and more.

[Peter20ghz]

I have got my self some problems that im not sure of how to fix. i also have thoughts about the power and speed of the system, (all might be connected)
If i should have posted this elsewhere then please let me know, but i thought this is probably newbie-related questions.
If im blury in my description just tell me and i try to explain better.

First, a couple of days ago i got warning about low disk-space, and it told me to empty waste-bin and some other cleanups, this didn't give me much, but i had no time to deal with it at the point so i left it there.
I could work as i should, email, surf, office, all worked, But i suddenly noticed that my 3 different network printers was lost, even file printer was gone. i cannot re-connect printer either, system say that cups is not working. in synaptic i have installed and re-installed all things that says anything with "cups" but no joy.
Next problem is that i can no longer ssh or even ping my unslunged nslu2
I go to wiffys PC with vista installed, she can print fine from the xerox netw-printer, she even get better (more real) colors than i ever did.
From hers i also can ping the nslu2 without problem, haven't tried ssh/putty but im sure it would work.

So im very confused about what has happen to my system, have i suddenly lost some network abilities due to low disk-space? And if so, how can i fix this?
How can i figure out where is the low disk-space? none of my physical hard drives are actually full, so how to know what to move?
Speed: my PC is more potent than my wifes, stronger/faster cpu, more memory, better graphic-card, etc. But when she prints to networkprinter it starts to print instantly, when i could print it took atleast a good 10-20 seconds before it started to print. And why does she get exact colors, but when i print i get rather diferent shades of certain colors? If i move files from my hdd to a usb-stick it can take 10 times longer than doing the same on hers or even on my 5 year old laptop.
Is LM(8) realy that much slower than vista/xp ? Or is that more likely a bad conf in my system? Then what to change?

I have installed LM8 twice on my PC, first time something didn't become as i wanted, not sure what that was now. But anyway, i re-installed LM8 and then it worked fine.
Except i got two "filesystems" (see attached picture) and im not sure if i dare to delete one of them, and if so , which one?
Would i gain anything from re-installing again? Can i reinstall on top of what i have so i dont loose settings, installed applications, emails and all that?
Or should i maybe upgrade to LM9, would that help me? and can that be done on top of what i have so that applications, documents, email etc are still where i want them?

Thank you for reading this.

Best regards
Peter

[remoulder]

Unfortunately you screenshots don't tell us anything, please open a terminal, enter df -h and copy/paste the output back here.

[Peter20ghz]

Hi and thanks for answering.
I posted the picture to show how ive gotten two similar "home" folders, but maybe its not much of use.
The terminal sent back this info.
sda5 and sda7 are both the same type of folders, but one is from older install and i want to get rid of it, just not sure if i can, and if so, which one?
looks like sdb5 is were my low disk problem is, how do i know where that is on my hard drives?

Code: Select all

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb5              41G   39G  106M 100% /
udev                  2.0G  360K  2.0G   1% /dev
none                  2.0G  208K  2.0G   1% /dev/shm
none                  2.0G  360K  2.0G   1% /var/run
none                  2.0G     0  2.0G   0% /var/lock
none                  2.0G     0  2.0G   0% /lib/init/rw
/dev/sda1             333G  216G  118G  65% /media/DISK 1 NEW
/dev/sdb1             261G  237G   24G  92% /media/DISK 2 OLD
/dev/sdb2             293G  244G   50G  84% /media/DISK 2 OLD_
/dev/sda5              63G  6.0G   54G  10% /media/sda5
/dev/sda7              63G   19G   41G  32% /media/sda7

[remoulder]

If you boot the livecd and run gparted from the menu, you will be able to delete the partitions you don't want, they are labelled the same way, change drives using the dropdown top right corner.

[Peter20ghz]

Ok, i still have that disk so it can be done.
But how will i know which one to delete sda5 eller sda7?
And i also saw that i have another third "file system" located at /.
So maybe i can delete both sda5 and sda7?
But could this affect my network printing/pinging access, or is it a hole other story?

Thanks.
Peter

[remoulder]

Your '/' is on sdb5, not sda. If you're not sure which partition you don't want, try commenting out the line for each partition in turn in /etc/fstab first (where I assume they are mounted), and rebooting. You will likely get an error if you comment out your home. You can post the contents of this file if you want us to have a look.