Linux Mint Forums

by **caf4926** on Tue Jan 29, 2013 3:09 am

Check this
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3e0lLG ... pmd2s/edit

by **grizzler** on Tue Jan 29, 2013 7:22 am

WinCrasher wrote:Well I tried booting from the disk. I was able to see the external HD but I didn't have access to my data.

I can plug the HD now and I can see the drive but I can't open it.

What exactly happens when you try? An error message or nothing at all?

Right now I am reading the Gparted manual. No matter how this turns out i plan to partition my drive so that Data and OS are separate and I can reinstall at will.

Definitely a good idea.

by **WinCrasher** on Tue Jan 29, 2013 11:30 am

First, I would just like to say THANK YOU SO MUCH to all of you guys (and girls?) that have helped me out here. You are all AWESOME. Srsly.

After working with Linux for a couple of months, the fog is finally starting to clear. I can almost see my hand in front of my face now.

I can Definitely see the ELEGANCE of the system. But it's NOT intuitive. You really have to know what the words mean to be able to understand it. That has been my biggest hurdle. Two sources that have really helped me are Nixiepixel and Linfo.org.

I found Nixiepixel while looking for a video on partitioning at first I didn't know what the heck she was talking about but at least she seemed to KNOW what she was talking about. (Ok she's not hard to watch either and I kinda have this thing for redheads :oops:

)

And Linfo.org IS just an excellent site for defining the words and figuring out what everything means.

I say this so you guys can refer newbies to them for self study. I really wish someone had pointed me to This Page when I first started with linux.

OK Now to my plan. Here is the current staus of my drive. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6CirnGQ0SN2cVNHOUN3WExBQlE/edit
I want to shrink the sda1 partition and make room for a separate partition for linux OS.

1.Will that cause me to lose data? At this point even if i lost some data it would be better than nothing. But I obviously wouldn't shrink it to less than half of it's current size. Just about 5GB or so should be enough I suppose. I will keep the /swap and change sda1 to /home and add a new / partition.

2. If I install LM in a separate partition, what would happen to the OS that now resides in the sda1? (I assume that's where it is now. This is how LM set up the drive on initial installation)

3. should i add a /boot partition and if so what size?

by **caf4926** on Tue Jan 29, 2013 1:16 pm

What OS is on sda1?
Because it's ext4 which is a linux format

by **WinCrasher** on Tue Jan 29, 2013 3:33 pm

caf4926 wrote:What OS is on sda1?Because it's ext4 which is a linux format

Yeah it's linux. That's the only OS I am using. Windows is no more.

by **caf4926** on Tue Jan 29, 2013 4:44 pm

You can't really change sda1 to /home and expect to have your data as it is
Since sda1 is essentially / in your current setup

You really ought to backup to an external or other source and re-partition your HD
Look at mine for example

sda5 is Mint /
sda7 is Mint /home

sda9 is a backup or temp/testing partition

I have openSUSE installed too as can be seen. But Mint is my main OS on this eeepc

by **grizzler** on Tue Jan 29, 2013 5:34 pm

Right. This is what I would do.

Starting from what you've got (simplified representation of the image you provided):

Code: Select all: partition size used sda1 ext4 146.18GiB 74,94GiB sda2 extended 2.87GiB sda5 swap 2.87GiB

I'm puzzled why you've created an extended partition with nothing but swap in it. Any particular reason? If not, I would suggest this:

- shrink sda1 to about 125GiB
- delete the current sda2
- create a new sda2 of about 20GiB
- create a new sda3 of about the same size as the old sda2

All primary partitions.

Unless the currently used (nearly) 75GiB on sda1 is arranged in an unusual way, I wouldn't expect shrinking sda1 to even touch your data, so you shouldn't run the risk of losing any (all assuming the filing system on sda1 isn't already messed up in some way).

Install Mint, with the entire installation including /home on sda2 and swap on sda3.

See if you can access sda1 from your new installation. If you can, start by backing up your data from sda1 to your external HD. Leave /home where it is, but create symlinks or bind mounts to data directories on sda1 (don't worry if you have no idea how to do this now - it's easily explained should you decide to go this route).

Finally, remove what you no longer need from sda1 (i.e. the 'non data' parts).

Depending on how easy it is to access sda1 from your new installation, it may be sensible to reformat sda1 after you've backed up your data.

There are other options, like moving /home to sda1 later or doing a second new install, but if you start as I described above, you should at least be able to get to your data first.

by **raymerjacque** on Tue Jan 29, 2013 5:52 pm

i run both Windows 7 and linuxmint dual boot. this is the steps i followed :

in windows 7 i right click my computer, choose manage, then went to where it shows my dives.
I right clicked my main drive and chose "shrink volume", i freed up 160GB. ( * I DID NOT FORMAT OR CREATE A PARTITION ON FREE SPACE !!!! ) i left it just showing 160GB free space. )
I booted up on the linux live disc and started installation and chose "install alongside windows 7. It will automaticly use the free space and make the correct mount points.
Easy as pie.

When i wanted to reinstall linux ( i messed around alot and reinstalled ALOT !
I went back into windows 7, deleted the extra 2 partitions that linux created from the free space.
booted of linux live disc and once again chose install along side windows...
easy as pie.

to remove linux completely you can either restore the mbr and boot into windows 7 and simply delete the 2 linux partitions
OR
even easier, download and install grub customiser 3.02, run it and set Windows 7 default boot os and set display time to 0.
then when you boot up it will skip grub and simply boot windows 7, then go to manage drives and delete both linux partitions and merge free space with your main drive again ...
Easy as pie.

by **zerozero** on Tue Jan 29, 2013 7:22 pm

grizzler wrote:I'm puzzled why you've created an extended partition with nothing but swap in it. Any particular reason?

i believe that this is ubiquity's "fault": when you let it set the partitions it comes with solutions like this one.

by **caf4926** on Wed Jan 30, 2013 12:37 am

zerozero wrote:
grizzler wrote:I'm puzzled why you've created an extended partition with nothing but swap in it. Any particular reason?
i believe that this is ubiquity's "fault": when you let it set the partitions it comes with solutions like this one.

Correct

by **grizzler** on Wed Jan 30, 2013 3:48 am

I see. Weird.

by **WinCrasher** on Wed Jan 30, 2013 4:15 pm

OK I have reinstalled LM but I think I did it wrong. I was going to do it just like grizzler illustrated, but I changed at the last minute because it gave me a message that said something that made me think my data would be deleted. (I should have screencapped it, but I just wanted to get thru it) So now I still seem to have my data, but I can't access it.

NOTE: I WAS able to back up my data from the boot disk. So I can replace it if needed. But it doesn't look like it needs to be.

Here is my HD https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6CirnGQ0SN2RUJrc3BnbURpbEU/edit Just the way grizzler described except that the / and /home drives are reversed.

(I actually could have installed LM alongside LM as a Dual Boot! I was asked that on installation. Novel Idea!)

And here is the Home folder. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6CirnGQ0SN2RnEwNlNqRnU3aWs/edit Judging from the free space of 39.6 GB, it looks like the free space that would be remaining in the sda1 /home drive. But all of the folders are empty. If i am reading correctly, I am booted from the sda1 drive.

So the question of the day is.....Have I lost my data? And if not, how do I access it?

by **WinCrasher** on Wed Jan 30, 2013 4:42 pm

OK I Did find my old stuff. I had to open the home folder, click file system/home/home/greg and there it is. I think I can use the backup tool to move it into my new home folder. but them would it still be in a seperate partion from the OS? Now I am lost.

by **grizzler** on Thu Jan 31, 2013 4:00 am

The gparted screen indicates sda2 is your root partition and your /home is on sda1. This is actually very close to the setup you suggested yourself in one of your messages of January 29th.

You write you've accessed your data on /home/home/greg and assuming that double /home is not a typo, that would be the original home folder of your previous installation, which has now gone one level deeper because sda1 has been mounted as /home.

So essentially you now have a setup with root on one partion and home on another. Nothing wrong with that. All you need to do now is move the data from 'somewhere' in /home/home/greg to /home/greg (assuming greg is your current username as well). Just be careful not to move too much. I.e. leave any settings and configuration files for applications and tools from the old installation where they are (you should be able to delete them later) and only move real data files (documents, music, images, video, whatever).
If the contents of both 'homes' are owned by user(id) 1000 (which is what I would expect), you should be able to move everything using the filemanager.

by **WinCrasher** on Thu Jan 31, 2013 6:26 pm

grizzler wrote:assuming that double /home is not a typo

Lol, No that's not a typo. I now have two /home directories. I did try to move the folders but I was unable to move my Pictures file, which is 63 GB. I can't move it because there is only 39.6 GB Free space in BOTH directories. Also, when I imported pictures from my camera to the /home/pictures file, they also showed up in the /home/home/greg/pictures file at the same time.

Is there a way to just shorten the path to the original files and bypass the new one? I have already trashed the (empty) folders from the new /home directory. Or I guess I could move my pictures a subfolder at a time and delete as I go, to keep enough space freed up. I wasn't able to just delete the /home directory I sent everything in it to trash but the dir is still there. I suppose I could do it with the CLI but I would have to make sure I don't delete the wrong one. oh boy.

by **grizzler** on Fri Feb 01, 2013 4:36 am

WinCrasher wrote:Lol, No that's not a typo. I now have two /home directories. I did try to move the folders but I was unable to move my Pictures file, which is 63 GB. I can't move it because there is only 39.6 GB Free space in BOTH directories.

They're on the same partition, so a move should be a 'real' move, i.e. filing system pointers should get redirected and no cut/paste action should take place. *)

And that's actually the same 39.6GB, visible from two different angles.

Also, when I imported pictures from my camera to the /home/pictures file, they also showed up in the /home/home/greg/pictures file at the same time.

indeed. That doesn't really make sense. I would have expected the old (/home/home/greg) setup to stay out of it entirely. I wonder if some kind of symlinking has occurred.

I need to figure this out before making any new suggestions. Could you show me the output of the following terminal commands?

Code: Select all: cat /etc/fstab ls -la / ls -la /home ls -la /home/greg cat /home/greg/.config/user-dirs.dirs ls -la /home/home ls -la /home/home/greg cat /home/home/greg/.config/user-dirs.dirs

[*) edit: it seems that, depending on how you perform the action, the filemanager (at least the Nautilus on my system) can get confused when you move things around on the same partition, so it starts a cut/paste anyway.

]

by **WinCrasher** on Fri Feb 01, 2013 10:47 am

OK Here you go. Remember, I took the empty files outof the /home dir, Except for Pictures, I imported the shots from my camera to there. So that may affect the results. (The empties are still in Trash, I didn't delete them)

Code: Select all: greg@greg-Satellite-L355 ~ $ cat /etc/fstab # /etc/fstab: static file system information. # # Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a # device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices # that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5). # # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0 # / was on /dev/sda2 during installation UUID=a206b14e-bff0-4158-b014-57fbc85aff31 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1 # /home was on /dev/sda1 during installation UUID=ad26d68b-cf58-4254-9502-5f7d9281a81d /home ext4 defaults 0 2 # /swap was on /dev/sda3 during installation UUID=68d694a8-9e23-44c3-921a-0a076c9c27d7 /swap ext4 defaults 0 2 greg@greg-Satellite-L355 ~ $ ls -la / total 132 drwxr-xr-x 23 root root 4096 Jan 30 11:13 . drwxr-xr-x 23 root root 4096 Jan 30 11:13 .. drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 30 12:04 bin drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jan 30 12:18 boot drwxr-xr-x 15 root root 4280 Jan 31 19:56 dev drwxr-xr-x 148 root root 12288 Jan 31 19:56 etc drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 4096 Jan 30 11:11 home lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 Jan 30 11:13 initrd.img -> boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-23-generic lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 Jan 30 11:02 initrd.img.old -> /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-23-generic drwxr-xr-x 20 root root 4096 Jan 30 12:06 lib drwx------ 2 root root 16384 Jan 30 11:02 lost+found drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 23 2012 media drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 19 2012 mnt drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 May 3 2012 opt dr-xr-xr-x 152 root root 0 Jan 31 19:55 proc drwx------ 8 root root 4096 Jan 30 11:45 root drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 760 Jan 31 19:56 run drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 30 12:17 sbin drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 5 2012 selinux drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 23 2012 srv drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jan 30 11:02 swap drwxr-xr-x 12 root root 0 Jan 31 19:55 sys drwxrwxrwt 13 root root 36864 Feb 1 09:17 tmp drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 4096 Apr 23 2012 usr drwxr-xr-x 12 root root 4096 Jan 31 19:55 var lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 29 Jan 30 11:13 vmlinuz -> boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-23-generic greg@greg-Satellite-L355 ~ $ ls -la /home total 1088 drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 4096 Jan 30 11:11 . drwxr-xr-x 23 root root 4096 Jan 30 11:13 .. drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 26 22:20 bin drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Dec 30 14:06 boot drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 29 00:09 computer drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 Apr 23 2012 dev drwxr-xr-x 166 root root 12288 Jan 30 08:10 etc drwxr-xr-x 25 greg greg 4096 Feb 1 09:06 greg drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Oct 13 20:00 home lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 Oct 13 20:02 initrd.img -> boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-23-generic lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 Oct 13 19:50 initrd.img.old -> /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-23-generic drwxr-xr-x 22 root root 4096 Dec 30 14:06 lib drwx------ 2 root root 16384 Oct 13 19:49 lost+found drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Oct 19 13:05 media drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jan 14 10:04 mnt drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 May 3 2012 opt drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 19 2012 proc drwx------ 8 root root 4096 Oct 13 20:57 root drwxr-xr-x 9 root root 4096 Oct 13 20:04 run drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 12288 Jan 26 22:21 sbin drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 5 2012 selinux drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 23 2012 srv drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 14 2012 sys drwxrwxrwt 8 root root 987136 Jan 30 08:10 tmp drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 4096 Apr 23 2012 usr drwxr-xr-x 13 root root 4096 Jan 30 08:10 var lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 29 Oct 13 20:02 vmlinuz -> boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-23-generic greg@greg-Satellite-L355 ~ $ ls -la /home/greg total 456 drwxr-xr-x 25 greg greg 4096 Feb 1 09:06 . drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 4096 Jan 30 11:11 .. drwx------ 3 greg greg 4096 Jan 30 11:35 .adobe -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 220 Jan 30 11:11 .bash_logout drwx------ 5 greg greg 4096 Jan 31 17:38 .cache drwxr-xr-x 13 greg greg 4096 Feb 1 01:09 .config drwx------ 3 greg greg 4096 Jan 30 11:29 .dbus -rw------- 1 greg greg 28 Jan 31 19:56 .dmrc drwxr-xr-x 2 greg greg 4096 Feb 1 01:09 .fontconfig drwx------ 4 greg greg 4096 Jan 31 19:56 .gconf -rw-r----- 1 greg greg 0 Jan 31 10:28 .gksu.lock drwx------ 3 greg greg 4096 Jan 30 11:35 .gnome2 drwx------ 2 greg greg 4096 Jan 30 11:35 .gnome2_private drwx------ 2 greg greg 4096 Jan 31 10:31 .gphoto drwxr-xr-x 2 greg greg 4096 Jan 30 21:02 .gstreamer-0.10 dr-x------ 2 greg greg 0 Jan 31 19:56 .gvfs -rw------- 1 greg greg 1110 Jan 31 19:56 .ICEauthority drwxr-xr-x 6 greg greg 4096 Jan 31 19:46 .linuxmint drwxr-xr-x 3 greg greg 4096 Jan 30 11:29 .local drwx------ 3 greg greg 4096 Jan 30 11:35 .macromedia drwx------ 3 greg greg 4096 Jan 31 21:13 .mate2 drwx------ 4 greg greg 4096 Jan 31 19:56 .mateconf drwx------ 2 greg greg 4096 Feb 1 08:44 .mateconfd drwxr-xr-x 4 greg greg 4096 Jan 30 11:11 .mozilla drwxr-xr-x 4 greg greg 4096 Jan 31 11:12 Pictures -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 675 Jan 30 11:11 .profile drwx------ 2 greg greg 4096 Jan 31 19:56 .pulse -rw------- 1 greg greg 256 Jan 30 11:29 .pulse-cookie -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 338414 Jan 31 17:11 Screenshot.png drwxr-xr-x 4 greg greg 4096 Jan 31 10:55 .shotwell drwx------ 4 greg greg 4096 Jan 30 21:00 .thumbnails drwx------ 4 greg greg 4096 Feb 1 09:06 .thunderbird -rw------- 1 greg greg 130 Jan 31 19:56 .Xauthority -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 1767 Feb 1 09:30 .xsession-errors greg@greg-Satellite-L355 ~ $ cat /home/greg/.config/user-dirs.dirs # This file is written by xdg-user-dirs-update # If you want to change or add directories, just edit the line you're # interested in. All local changes will be retained on the next run # Format is XDG_xxx_DIR="$HOME/yyy", where yyy is a shell-escaped # homedir-relative path, or XDG_xxx_DIR="/yyy", where /yyy is an # absolute path. No other format is supported. # XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="/home/home/greg/Desktop" XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="/home/home/greg/Downloads" XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="$HOME/" XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR="$HOME/" XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="/home/home/greg/Documents" XDG_MUSIC_DIR="$HOME/" XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/Pictures" XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="$HOME/" greg@greg-Satellite-L355 ~ $ greg@greg-Satellite-L355 ~ $ ls -la /home/home total 12 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Oct 13 20:00 . drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 4096 Jan 30 11:11 .. drwxr-xr-x 56 greg greg 4096 Jan 31 19:41 greg greg@greg-Satellite-L355 ~ $ ls -la /home/home/greg total 62112 drwxr-xr-x 56 greg greg 4096 Jan 31 19:41 . drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Oct 13 20:00 .. drwx------ 3 greg greg 4096 Oct 13 20:14 .adobe drwxr-xr-x 2 greg greg 4096 Oct 22 16:09 App Data drwx------ 2 greg greg 4096 Dec 28 19:49 .aptitude -rw------- 1 greg greg 3163 Jan 28 08:35 .bash_history -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 220 Oct 13 20:00 .bash_logout drwx------ 9 greg greg 4096 Jan 6 17:05 .cache drwxr-xr-x 2 greg greg 4096 Oct 19 14:16 .comments drwxr-xr-x 22 greg greg 4096 Jan 15 12:53 .config -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 318434 Oct 19 14:15 Darlenes House Front (2).JPG -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 14764156 Oct 19 14:15 Darlenes House Front.JPG drwx------ 3 greg greg 4096 Oct 13 20:11 .dbus drwxr-xr-x 2 greg greg 4096 Jan 31 10:23 Desktop -rw------- 1 greg greg 25 Jan 30 08:06 .dmrc drwxr-xr-x 6 greg greg 4096 Jan 30 20:58 Documents drwxr-xr-x 4 greg greg 4096 Jan 30 20:58 Downloads drwxr-xr-x 3 greg greg 4096 Nov 22 16:29 .dvdcss drwx------ 23 greg greg 4096 Jan 29 23:16 E Books drwxr-xr-x 2 greg greg 4096 Oct 20 19:23 .fontconfig drwx------ 3 greg greg 4096 Jan 30 08:06 .gconf drwx------ 4 greg greg 4096 Oct 13 20:39 .gegl-0.0 -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 29548822 Nov 3 22:19 GetBooked_Generate5kin2wks-AUDIO.mp3.zip drwxr-xr-x 2 greg greg 4096 Jan 22 13:19 Gif's drwxr-xr-x 22 greg greg 4096 Oct 13 22:31 .gimp-2.6 drwxr-xr-x 24 greg greg 4096 Jan 26 21:45 .gimp-2.8 -rw-r----- 1 greg greg 0 Jan 29 00:08 .gksu.lock drwx------ 4 greg greg 4096 Dec 27 22:59 .gnome2 drwx------ 2 greg greg 4096 Oct 13 20:12 .gnome2_private -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 36411 Jan 29 09:05 Gparted1292013.png drwx------ 2 greg greg 4096 Oct 16 13:50 .gphoto drwxr-xr-x 2 greg greg 4096 Jan 5 23:43 .gstreamer-0.10 -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 38 Oct 14 00:19 .gtk-bookmarks drwx------ 2 greg greg 4096 Oct 13 20:11 .gvfs drwxr-xr-x 4 greg greg 4096 Jan 1 15:21 H-1 drwxr--r-- 2 greg greg 4096 Oct 15 00:48 .hardinfo -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 39302 Jan 28 19:39 .html -rw------- 1 greg greg 17020 Jan 30 08:06 .ICEauthority drwxr-xr-x 4 greg greg 4096 Oct 20 17:27 .icedtea drwxr-xr-x 2 greg greg 4096 Oct 14 16:10 .icons -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 2409293 Aug 11 2008 IMG_0335.JPG -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 1963307 Aug 11 2008 IMG_0336.JPG -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 1950215 Aug 11 2008 IMG_0337.JPG -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 2922145 May 12 2009 IMG_1962.JPG -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 3871329 May 13 2009 IMG_1991.JPG drwx------ 2 greg greg 4096 Nov 21 23:39 .kde drwxr-xr-x 6 greg greg 4096 Dec 29 13:15 .linuxmint drwxr-xr-x 3 greg greg 4096 Oct 13 20:11 .local drwx------ 3 greg greg 4096 Oct 13 20:14 .macromedia drwx------ 5 greg greg 4096 Nov 2 10:50 .mate2 drwx------ 5 greg greg 4096 Jan 30 08:06 .mateconf drwx------ 2 greg greg 4096 Jan 30 08:10 .mateconfd drwxr-xr-x 4 greg greg 4096 Oct 13 20:00 .mozilla drwxr-xr-x 2 greg greg 4096 Nov 11 12:44 .mplayer -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 486402 Jan 21 20:27 multipurpose-workbench-table1.png -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 344505 Jan 21 20:26 multipurpose-workbench-table2.png drwxr-xr-x 11 greg greg 4096 Jan 30 21:02 Music drwx------ 20 greg greg 4096 Jan 29 22:52 .opera drwxr-xr-x 51 greg greg 4096 Jan 30 21:02 Photos drwxr-xr-x 11 greg greg 110592 Jan 31 10:33 Pictures -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 675 Oct 13 20:00 .profile drwxr-xr-x 25 greg greg 4096 Jan 22 12:50 Project Idea File drwxr-xr-x 2 greg greg 4096 Oct 13 20:11 Public drwx------ 2 greg greg 4096 Jan 30 08:06 .pulse -rw------- 1 greg greg 256 Oct 13 20:11 .pulse-cookie drwxr-xr-x 3 greg greg 12288 Oct 27 12:40 Recycle Bin From Old Windows -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 254088 Jan 18 23:07 Screenshot-9.png -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 355544 Jan 22 12:47 Screenshot-Fab.com | Stackable Shelving Without Limits - Opera.png -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 442291 Jan 20 21:15 Screenshot.png drwxr-xr-x 2 greg greg 4096 Oct 13 20:11 Templates drwxr-xr-x 2 greg greg 4096 Oct 14 16:10 .themes drwx------ 4 greg greg 4096 Oct 16 15:47 .thumbnails drwx------ 4 greg greg 4096 Dec 9 00:42 .thunderbird drwxr-xr-x 5 greg greg 4096 Jan 30 08:07 tomboy -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 259128 Dec 8 22:51 tumblr_me54ae8g5M1qbuewbo1_500.jpg drwxr-xr-x 2 greg greg 4096 Jan 14 10:07 Videos drwxr-xr-x 2 greg greg 4096 Dec 29 14:24 .wicd drwx------ 4 greg greg 4096 Dec 27 22:31 .xchat2 drwxr-xr-x 2 greg greg 4096 Nov 1 23:09 .xinput.d -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 139803 Jan 30 08:10 .xsession-errors -rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 3058453 Oct 31 18:14 yapper.JPG drwxr-xr-x 3 greg greg 4096 Jan 27 01:45 Zip files greg@greg-Satellite-L355 ~ $ cat /home/home/greg/.config/user-dirs.dirs # This file is written by xdg-user-dirs-update # If you want to change or add directories, just edit the line you're # interested in. All local changes will be retained on the next run # Format is XDG_xxx_DIR="$HOME/yyy", where yyy is a shell-escaped # homedir-relative path, or XDG_xxx_DIR="/yyy", where /yyy is an # absolute path. No other format is supported. # XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/Desktop" XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="$HOME/Downloads" XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="$HOME/Templates" XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR="$HOME/Public" XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="$HOME/Documents" XDG_MUSIC_DIR="$HOME/Music" XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/Pictures" XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="$HOME/Videos" greg@greg-Satellite-L355 ~ $

by **grizzler** on Fri Feb 01, 2013 12:18 pm

WinCrasher wrote:OK Here you go. Remember, I took the empty files outof the /home dir, Except for Pictures, I imported the shots from my camera to there. So that may affect the results.

Right. The cat /etc/fstab and ls commands don't show anything I wouldn't have expected. The user-dirs.dirs items are a bit odd, though. While they should look exactly the same, what you have is this (without the comments):

greg@greg-Satellite-L355 ~ $ cat /home/greg/.config/user-dirs.dirs
XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="/home/home/greg/Desktop"
XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="/home/home/greg/Downloads"
XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="$HOME/"
XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR="$HOME/"
XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="/home/home/greg/Documents"
XDG_MUSIC_DIR="$HOME/"
XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/Pictures"
XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="$HOME/"

greg@greg-Satellite-L355 ~ $ cat /home/home/greg/.config/user-dirs.dirs
XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/Desktop"
XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="$HOME/Downloads"
XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="$HOME/Templates"
XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR="$HOME/Public"
XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="$HOME/Documents"
XDG_MUSIC_DIR="$HOME/Music"
XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/Pictures"
XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="$HOME/Videos"
greg@greg-Satellite-L355 ~ $

The Desktop, Downloads and Documents items of the new installation point to the ones in the old installation and Public, Templates, Music and Videos all point to the home folder itself. I wonder if that happened because you deleted things?

Anyway, you need to get the data folders to the correct level without the file manager getting into a cut/paste sequence. Ordinarily, I would advise you to do this from the terminal, but I'm not sure that will correctly update the ~/.config/user-dirs.dir file. However, there's so much old stuff in both the /home and home/home/greg folders, that getting all of that in one file manager view is going to be a problem.
I need to think this through and unfortunately, right now I have other obligations. I'll get back to you later this evening or tomorrow morning.
Edit: to make sure that last sentence makes sense, what timezone are you in?

by **WinCrasher** on Fri Feb 01, 2013 2:35 pm

I'm in the same Time zone as NY. EST. it's 1:37pm

I can still get around, so it's no emergency, I 'll try not to change too much around. The Folders I trashed were empty but I can restore them if that would make a difference. And once again Thanks very much for your help. I am learning a lot thru all this and that's the name of game isn't it.

by **grizzler** on Fri Feb 01, 2013 5:50 pm

Right. It was around 19:37 here (CET - Central European TIme) when you wrote that, 7:37pm as you would say, and for me 'later this evening' would be about now (22:55).

After rereading some of your previous postings, I get the impression you tried to copy everything, manually deleting the originals afterwards, rather than move things. That is indeed not going to work because there's not enough space on sda1.

However, if the filemanager decides it has to move things by copy/delete rather than changing the pointers, in my experience that is done on a (more or less) file by file basis, so the action shouldn't run out of disk space.

Have you tried that? I.e. using the filemanager, right click on the Pictures folder in /home/home/greg, select 'Cut', go to /home, right click on the folder greg and select 'Paste into folder' (I assume that's what it says - I don't use an English language setup so I have to guess...).
If you do all that from the same filemanager window, I would expect it to try a real move, but even if it didn't, it still shouldn't fail for lack of space.
As /home/greg already has a Pictures folder, you'll be asked whether you want to merge the folders, but that shouldn't be a problem.

If that works, you could do the same with the other (ordinary) folders and files in /home/home/greg.
If it doesn't work (unlikely, but I've seen too many weird things happen with computers to write 'impossible'), moving Pictures a subfolder at the time -as you suggested- should.

After that, there would still be a lot of old configuration files and folders in /home/home/greg (you may need to press ctrl+H to see them in the filemanager window), but the current installation won't try to use them anyway. All you need from them is the file user-dirs.dir in /home/home/greg/.config. That should take the place of the one in /home/greg/.config.

There's also the previous installation, which is still visible in /home. The only thing that needs to be in /home is your home folder greg. You can remove the rest, but you'll need a filemanager with root privileges.

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