log in problem

[Thierry de Coulon]

On Monday 04 October 2010, Ash Wyllie wrote:
> I can't log onto my laptop from the internal drive.
>
> I can use the computer a USB stick.
>
> I can see that the drive is there, that all the data is on it, and that
> there is no free space (0 bytes) on the drive.

That may be the key of your problem: no place, the system can't create logs.
How is your disk partitioned? "A la Windows", with one big partition and 
everything in it?

> When I try to log in, there is a notice
>
> "INSTALL PROBLEM
>
> The comfiguration of dedfaults for Gnome Power Management have not been
> installled properly
>
> Please  contact your computer administrator."
>
> Is there some way to get at the hard drive and delete a couple files?

I'm not sure to understand "I can use the computer a USB stick". Anyway, you 
should find a way to boot from a live system (USB stick or live CD), then 
mount your disk/partition and, as root, you should ne able to delete files.

You can also check the size of the directories, most probably /home/<your 
user>. If one directory is _very_ big, then the file to delete is there.

If a program get's stuck in an error loop, it may fill up your disk space with 
a huge error log. That's why /home should _always_ be on a separate 
partition, so if your home directory get's full, you can still log in as root 
to clear space (that's where Ubuntu's policy bites back as you'll have to do 
this at the command line...)

Hope that helps

Thierry


-- 
"We live at a time when emotions and feelings count more than truth, an there 
is a vast ignorance of science" James Lovelock