Log in problems

[relik]

The system had been running perfectly for a week now.

Suddenly this morning I find my torrent downloads have stopped half way - claiming it was out of disk space. Impossible. But I deleted files to make sure.

The torrents would not restart. I then tried to install the deluge client from the Mint Software Portal. I again got the out of space error. There was definitely something wrong.

I restarted the computer and when I tried to log in I got an error message saying:

GDM could not write your authorisation file. Out of disk space or home directory could not be opened. In either case could not log in. Contact system administrator.

I have no clue what to do in recovery mode and am a total newb.

PLEASE HELP!

[Husse]

The first thing we need to check is if you really are out of disk space. One simple way of doing this in recovery mode is to type "df" (always without the " and followed by Enter)
Gives you the usage in percentage for each partition and a few other things
To me it seems that you really are out of space

[relik]

indeed i must have been out of space.

I reloaded winXP and using a partition explorer I deleted a 220mb file from my download directory.

LinuxMint did restart. However I don't understand how I could have run out of space already. This is supposed to be a 20GB partition.

Thi s is the output of 'df'

Code: Select all

Filesystem           1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda7              4324728   2979108   1125936  73% /
varrun                 1037308       120   1037188   1% /var/run
varlock                1037308         0   1037308   0% /var/lock
procbususb             1037308       140   1037168   1% /proc/bus/usb
udev                   1037308       140   1037168   1% /dev
devshm                 1037308        20   1037288   1% /dev/shm
lrm                    1037308     33788   1003520   4% /lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/volatile
/dev/sda2             55480476  32635800  22844676  59% /media/sda2
/dev/sda3             28219264  14105152  14114112  50% /media/sda3
fusesmb                4324728   2979108   1125936  73% /home/jatin/Network
/dev/sda5             20447120     33508  20202520   1% /media/disk


[relik]

I think I know whats going on.

A few days ago I screwed up my installation and tried to reinstall Mint from the Live CD. I thought I had written over the previous installation but it seems it has created a new one, much too small for my needs.

So, is there a way to merge the previous installation on sd5 with the current installation on sd7.

Would GParted do this without me losing my current settings?

[Husse]

You cant merge the installs
But if one is working you could use the other as you separate home partition
So, think it through carefully before any action. If sda5 was your previous installation that you thought you had formated and installed fresh again, format it and use as a separate home partition
See the wiki http://www.linuxmint.com/wiki/index.php ... _partition
I think you'll even be better off