When the user fills up the hard drive

[Phillip Susi]

Sean Hammond wrote:
> What do you mean 'single user mode'? Does the initial ubuntu user
> count as a 'superuser'? The fact is, this user cannot login when the
> disk if full on Ubuntu. GNOME fails to load and they get dumped back
> to GDM. This will happen to non-expert users. The only way to login is
> to switch to a text-only virtual terminal. I think we need to do
> something to ensure that GNOME login is always possible.

Single user mode is also known as rescue mode.  It boots the system into 
console mode without Xwindows and only allows root to log in.  Your 
average user isn't going to be able to do this however.

The reserved space can only be used by root, not the normal user(s) so 
it doesn't help in this case.

I can't think of a reason that gnome must create on disk files or fail 
to login, so that sounds like a bug to me.  Any temp files it needs 
should be in /tmp which is a tmpfs so should never be full after a clean 
boot.

You should also be able to log into gnome with the filesystem mounted 
read only imho.