(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Hello Forum.

Pure nooby here.

I'm in 5.2.5, and boy-o-boy am I completely lost. Apologies, as there are many posts on this subject but I couldn't make any sense out of any of them.

There are a lot of posts in the forum pertaining to the message "Warning: Personal storage getting full, strongly recommend you resize it or delete files." Two matters of inquiry here:

This error came up while I was copying many hundreds of megabytes MP3 files from my internal hard drive (Windows C drive) to a USB hard drive. Or at least I THINK I was moving them from my hard drive. Now that I look at things it looks like a screwed up really badly. From the Rox file manager when I navigate to "mnt/home" I see what appears to be my Windows C drive. All the expected files are there. But in the lower left portion of my Puppy desktop, my C drive comes up as "sda1". But -- sda1 doesn't come up in the Rox filer.

Why doesn't it come up the same way in these different views?

Ok, so anyway, using Rox, I was copying a couple of hundred megs of MP3's from "mnt/home" to an external USB hard drive that is identified as "sdf1". Prior to that, I deleted a whole bunch of files from the USB drive, maybe about 100 or 200 meg.

As soon as I starting copying, at the top of the Puppy desktop I receive the message posted above.

Now, I did not specify anything when I deleted the files from the USB drive. I assumed they would be just flagged as deleted on the drive, thus making their space available for over-write. Did these files delete onto my Puppy drive?

Secondly, if this is the case, as I did not specify they go to the Puppy trash, how in the world do I get to them to clear them out of my personal storage space? I have no need or desire to increase my personal storage space. I just want to delete these files.

How do I do that? How does this whole deleting thing work? Why would moving and deleting files from 2 mounted drives have any affect on my Puppysave to begin with?

Thanks for the assistance.

brian

Not sure if this will help or not (I read your post, but not slowly or very carefully) but I had a similar problem, at least I hope it's similar.

I deleted some files (from the system, not the USB) and I rebooted. The reboot is important, but don't bother until you've done some cleanup. Also don't delete the wrong files well, hope that helps a little.

Actually, /mnt/home is a symlink pointing to the partition which contains the puppy's savefile that you're using.

About the other problem, I think that you're (maybe) moving the mp3 folder
to somewhere INSIDE your pupsave.
BTW, puppy on USB blocks the deleted files (when they're inside the pup-lupu-qrkysave file)
to remove them at reboot.

With a "full" install; moving something to trash and
empty the trash deletes anything immediately and permanently.

@ ogobot

Maybe for better understanding:

open your file manager and go to the top directory /.

All changes, copying, editing, moving or deleting files in one of these folders or subfolders goes to your save file.

The only exception is the folder /mnt. This is your way out.

To see what is really in your save file, you can look at /initrd/pup_rw. This folder represents your save file. There you can search for your mp3 files (if they are really there) or you can use Gdmap to see what fills up your save file. Maybe you used /home (it's inside your save file) instead of /mnt/home?

Btw. how big is your save file? How much free space?

Why would moving and deleting files from 2 mounted drives have any affect on my Puppysave to begin with?

Usually it shouldn't. Maybe it fills up temporarily some cache with info about which file from where to where.

I remember that I've had a similar problem, copying ~130GB from one usb drive to another one. System halted after ~30GB, but I can't remember whether system only freezed or because the save file was full. I copied ~20GB pieces and that worked.

HTH
Rolf

1. "when I navigate to "mnt/home" I see what appears to be my Windows C drive. All the expected files are there. But in the lower left portion of my Puppy desktop, my C drive comes up as "sda1". But -- sda1 doesn't come up in the Rox filer"
(a) This is normal behavior in Puppy Linux.

EXPLANATION:
(b) If/when your puppy at bootup has found its pupsave [yours is on c: = sda1], and uses it...
It [Puppy] will display a special symbol [mine shows a gold sphere] against that partition, displayed on the desktop, to indicate that this partition_file_system has been auto-mounted, and is in use...
...Because your pupsave is on there.
Then....

(b) You can use any file browser to go take a look at the contents of...
The root directory...
Of the partition...
Holding somewhere beneath the root directory...
The pupsave file that's in use.
[e.g. My own file in use right now is /mnt/home/04-Lupu/lupusave.3fs on sdb2 = a partition on my 2nd internal HDD]
[Notice I have mine inside a sub-folder named 04-Lupu]->[See screenshot]

(c) As a Puppy Linux user, you are expected to learn->know and understand, that...
[I'm no expert, so I hope I get it right]
c1. What you see displayed by your file browser [I use the SUPERB "X File Explorer" = Xfe]...
Is the contents of the Linux file system held within your pupsave file.
c2. To view the contents of other partition_file_systems...
They must first be mounted.
And they will then be displayed within the Puppy Linux filesystem under the mnt/ directory/folder.
I've always thought it strange that:
File systems that are external to the Puppy file system...
Are displayed AS THOUGH held within the Puppy file system.

Gee - thanks. That's a flood of information. Stuck at work today but will check it tonight and follow up. Thanks again.

Hi,
My storage is also getting full. I don't know, what I should do.
I have a 40 GB HDD with 4 partitions:
sda1 (ext3) 2 GB for Puppy Precise 5.7.1, it contains the .2sf file (512 MB)
sda2 (ext3) 768 MB (I have 768MB of RAM)
sda4 (vfat) 5 GB (but I don't have Windows, just Puppy)
sda3 (ext3) other (29,5 GB)

So, should I resize just the savefile, or also the sda1 partition?
I have Open Office (300 MB) in /opt so it occupies space in the personal storage. Could I move it to somewhere else, to /mnt/home or an other partition?

You can move almost anything from inside the save file to /mnt/home and then symlink it back.

Move the directory to /mnt/home by dragging it in rox filer and choosing move. Then drag it back to its original location and choose relative link.

The other thing that is good to move is your browser's cache files and depending on the browser the user profile types of files too.

fobq wrote:...should I resize just the savefile, or also the sda1 partition?

Definitely resize your savefile...
To 1GB I suggest is good.
Is there enough free space on sda1 to take the increase in the savefile?
If there is, then no need to increase the partition size.

I have moved open office to /mnt/home and linked it back. It works well. Thank you.

I have enough free space to increase the savefile to 1 GB.
I am just learning linux directory structure. I don't know what the difference is between to have a program in the savefile or out of it (in /mnt/home)?
Can I install a program (firefox, office etc.) to an other partition and link it back to puppy's partition?

fobq wrote:I have moved open office to /mnt/home and linked it back. It works well. Thank you.

I have enough free space to increase the savefile to 1 GB.
I am just learning linux directory structure. I don't know what the difference is between to have a program in the savefile or out of it (in /mnt/home)?
Can I install a program (firefox, office etc.) to an other partition and link it back to puppy's partition?

I think for it to work, you have to install it to the save file, move it, and link it back.

What is different about linux is that the links aren't just shortcuts like in Windows. As far as linux is concerned, a linked file or folder is actually there for almost all purposes.

I found that I was having to continously increase my savefile, despite the fact I was rarely adding new programs or anything that could take up much space. I eventually found that the space hoggers were: 1) a temp folder in /.wine/ (this was massive) 2) Firefox 'crash reporter' files.

After deleting those (and turning off the crash reporter) I haven't had to increase my savefile since.