[NTLUG:Discuss] Re: Help Request

[Patrick R. Michaud]

On Wed, Sep 28, 2005 at 10:11:39AM -0500, Dennis Rice wrote:
> Expanding on what Fred wrote, I have had a problem in the past where the 
> X just quit because the HD had filled up.  I deleted un-needed files and 
> got the system running again.  Apparently, X likes to write more to the 
> disk than to just the SWAP partition, so when no space left, it dies.

Expanding on what Dennis wrote, anytime a partition gets full 
(especially /var and /tmp) then all sorts of bad things can start 
happening to the system as processes become unable to cope
with the inability to save files to disk.  Many programs don't
even check for write errors -- they just assume that writing will
always succeed.

It's best to watch the disk space usage (the "df" command) and
avoid disk full errors altogether.

Pm



> Fred wrote:
> 
> >...
> >What would cause this kind of failure? A scribbled disk? Maybe from a
> >power hit? She has no battery backup and she leaves the system on all
> >the time.
> > 
> >
> ...
> 
> As others have said, it's hard to say without the error info; it could 
> be many things.
> 
> OTOH, this sounds like a disk partition may have filled up.  I see weird 
> stuff on my system when that happens, and it always takes me awhile to 
> figure out something that simple. :-)
> 
> Anyway, with some more info, we can give you some better guesses...
> 
> Kevin
> 
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