disk full wont login

[os480]

Hi,

No to good with Linux. My disk has become full and centos 4.8 (final) won't let me login anymore to gnome - strange it should allow one to get to this stage of affairs.

Googled and found

cd ~/.Trash
su
rm -rf *

as a good way to make more space.

Only how do I get to a terminal to do this. My first thought was to start in a sort of command line only equivalent of Windows but I do not know how to do this.

What is the simplest way to solve the problem?

[TrevorH]

If you running a GUI, hit Ctrl-Alt-F2 to switch to a command line terminal on VT2 then login as root with the correct password. Now identify where the space is being used by running

[code]
du --max-depth=1 -m -x /
[/code]

(repeat this command narrowing it down by the amount of space allocated, so if the first iteration shows a lot of space under /var then run it again with /var as the last parameter, repeat until you find the lowest level directory containing lots of used space).

[os480]

Thanks for the suggestion TrevorH.

Solution worked nicely, just must remember not to logout with disk full and take immediate action in the future!

[quote]
TrevorH wrote:
If you running a GUI, hit Ctrl-Alt-F2 to switch to a command line terminal on VT2 then login as root with the correct password. Now identify where the space is being used by running

[code]
du --max-depth=1 -m -x /
[/code]

(repeat this command narrowing it down by the amount of space allocated, so if the first iteration shows a lot of space under /var then run it again with /var as the last parameter, repeat until you find the lowest level directory containing lots of used space).[/quote]

[pschaff]

[quote]
os480 wrote:
... My disk has become full and centos 4.8 (final) ... [/quote]
Please be aware: [url=https://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=35824&forum=27]CentOS 4 Has Reached End of Life.[/url]