Out of Space

[Liam Proven]

On 6 August 2016 at 18:58, Richard Barmann <reb at barmannsbar.com> wrote:
> http://s1244.photobucket.com/user/reb1932/slideshow/


OK.

Your photos of the GParted screen are at a strange angle and do not
show the whole of the program window. I can't see the size of the 1st
disk.

I think you have 2 disks, correct?

One of about 250GB, and a second of about 75GB?

On disk #1:

You appear to have 4 *primary* partitions. If the disk is under 2TB,
which it appears to be, then it is partitioned with MBR. This allows a
maximum of 4 primary partitions. To have more, you would have to
remove one, make an *extended* partition, and inside that, make
logical partitions.

You have a swap partition and 3 (probably) root partitions.

On disk 2, you have:

4 additional Linux partitions.
And /another/ swap partition.

I advise Googling all these terms and studying them closely before you
do anything. Wikipedia is a good source.

>From the boot menu, which is not entirely readable, because for that
one you held the camera far from the screen and the text is too small
for me to read, you appear to have 3 different versions of Ubuntu
installed: 15.04, 16.04 and an illegible one at the top.

All of these have their own root partitions and a mess of data partitions.

This is a complicated, tangled mess, to be frank, and while I don't
know how you got into it, I am not surprised you are confused.

Without knowing exactly what is installed where on your machine, it's
not possible to untangle the mess remotely. It's too complicated.

Use "try Ubuntu" mode and run Gparted. Create all your new partitions
using it. DO NOT try to use the built-in partitioner in the setup
program, it's not capable enough, and whatever you do, use manual
partitioning and do not allow the system to attempt to do it itself,
as you will get a mess like this again.

Here is what I would advise:

Start again. Backup, wipe, reload.

[1] Back up all your data to an external drive or 2. Ideally, make 2
copies of everything. USB2 drives are very cheap now. A 1TB drive will
be $50 or so.

[2] Boot from a new fresh Ubuntu 16.04 live CD.

[3] Remove *all* partitions.

THIS WILL ERASE ALL YOUR DATA AND PROGRAMS. BACK UP EVERYTHING *FIRST*.

[4] Make the following new partitions:

Disk #1:

/dev/sda1 ... /boot ... 2GB
/dev/sda2 ... extended... all remaining space
/dev/sda5 ... /home ... *inside* /dev/sda2 ... all remaining space

Disk #2

/dev/sdb1 ... extended...
/dev/sdb5 ... inside /dev/sdb1 ... 66GB... / (the root filesystem
where Ubuntu will live)
/dev/sdb6 ... inside /dev/sdb1 ... 8GB ... swap

It's more space than you need for root, but this config give you the
maximum possible space for your own data on disk #1 -- you will have
about 240-245GB.

If you want to keep it even simpler, you do not *need* the separate
/boot partition and can omit it.

If you want to have 2 copies of Ubuntu, you could split the space on
disk 2 into 2 equal-sized root partitions and share all the other
partitions (swap and home) between the 2 installations. I have done
this, and it works fine.

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)