disable low-disk space warnings/notifications?

[Peter Whittaker]

Ben Aldrich wrote:
> 
> This is one of those things I think we NEEED, it's very confusing
> for new users when programs stop working ...etc because they ran out
> of diskspace without being notified.

You are 100% correct: It is very confusing when things stop working for
no apparent reason.

 I write "no apparent reason" because many users will not associate the
low disk space warnings with applications dying silently....

>   Hell everyonce in awhile it
> confuses me still until I remember to check diskspace.

....thank you for making the point for me! :->

Seriously, it confuses you once in a while, and you know what you are
about.

Now imagine how it is for the great plurality for whom computers are a
mysterious black box with way cool capabilities. Play MP3's whoo-hoo!
Low on disk space? Whatever....

You expect them to associate low disk space warnings with silent app
death?

"They" will expect that the "geeks and nerds out there" (us) will have
done our jobs properly so that when applications find problems that
prevent them from running, they will tell the user what is going on.

In other words, if the application doesn't have enough disk space, it
will say "I don't have enough disk space, please run disk maintenance"
or "would you like me to invoke disk maintenance"?

Just what do we expect the ordinary user to do with those warnings?

Far better it would be if the warnings read "Please contact your
{nephew|aunt|german cousin|whoever installed recommended Ubuntu". At
least then they would know to do something they understand.

Even better would be if the warnings read "Please click here to run
maintenance". Maintenance would run "apt-get clean", "find /tmp -mtime
+7 -exec /bin/rm -f {}\;", etc.

pww