[solved]Cannot update no room

The updater wants me to run apt-get clean because there is not enough room on /boot. Really? Your install manual says to click on install and let 'er rip, after checking that the drive has at least 5GB of room! No where can I find a recommended /boot partition size, nor manual partitioning. BTW, /boot is only 248MB, don't ya think that's a wee bit small?

The automagic installer made a /boot partition of 248MB and an LVM partition consuming the rest of the drive (120GB).

Using OS8 64bit.

Now, how can I copy everything (including the hidden files) on whole drive?

What are the recommended partition sizes? I like to have separate / and /home partitions. I'm using on this machine a SSD drive and am told a swap partition is not wanted, is this correct?

Can I then copy the data back to the new partitions without having to perform a new install? (and still have it work?)

I believe that Swap is not really needed depending the ram you have. Swap if needed would be better on a seperate partition but could be part of another parition or even a file but for Zorin to make the best use of Swap then a seperate parition is the better option.

I would recommend, using system monitor and see how much ram you use and if you think that your ram is not enough then I would create a swap parition of no more then 2 Gb (I think 1Gb should be more then enough). I would also like to say, personally, if you need a swap partition then it might be worth upgrading your ram where possible.

On my machine, I only have one partiton and everything is installed on to that parition. I think there is a very good arguemnt for having seperate paritions. The main ones being: data is kept seperate and it can easier for recovery.

The only real drawback to using more partitions is that it is often difficult to know in advance what your needs will be. If you make a partition too small then you will either have to reinstall the system or you will be constantly moving things around to make room in the undersized partition. On the other hand, if you make the partition too big, you will be wasting space that could be used elsewhere.

If I read your post correctly, then your SSD drive would be around 120Gb in total. I would recommend the following parition sizes:
* 20 GB for your root partition
* 100 GB for /home

You might be able to resize your current partition size using gparted.

I kinda get the impression you knew most of the above but I put it there for completness. I hope that helps a little though.

Executive Summary:
Swap is not needed, should a Swap be needed, then a seperate partition of no more then 2Gb is needed.
Partition sizes
* 20 GB for your root partition
* 100 GB for /home

OK, firstly I am no SSD expert (never had one and don't intend getting one anytime soon!) but I would go for the 'something else' option at install time. Because you have an SSD you should format to 'ext2' not 'ext4' file system.

Typical Installl as I see it (assuming only system and not dual boot):

1. '/' - root partition for system files - 30 Gb

2. Extended Partition - either 4 Gb swap at end or at start (earlier auto install versions always put swap at the end - hence the way I do it that way)

3. Remainder of Extended partition used for '/home'

Was surprised at the '/boot' size - when I have used it (on a works 10Gb SSD eeepc901) I made it 512 Mb - it should not be any larger than this.

You should still have a /home folder even though it does not have it's own partition - you may want to export your bookmarks of your browser first of all and save to a folder named 'Bookmarks' in your
/home folder - this is all I ever back up before doing a fresh installation - to ensure hidden files are included, go to your '/home' folder and press 'Ctrl+ H' to see all your hidden files - select them all and copy to external drive.

Every ubuntu derivative I've taken for a test drive in the past year do the automagic install the same way, a small /boot partition and a large LVM with the rest in there. The ssd drives don't seem to get a swap. I'm wondering if I should try to create a ram-drive at start-up? I haven't seen any documentation on ram-drives in years, with as cheap as ram has become, I'm wondering why it's not as popular as it used to be.

Thanks for the advice. Did some research on other links and it seems the use of ext4 on ssd drives is the way to go as it supports trim. I ended-up using gparted to make / and /home as separate partitions, no swap and /home being an extended LVM. I did not use the automagic feature, but manual mode for install. System is faster than ever with no issues yet.

Hi yonnie, thanks for the feedback - so ext4 trims are built in? Glad you are sorted!

My real b**** is about the automagic installer, which seems to be the same installer on every ubuntu derivative for past half year or so. It automatically uses ext2 which is buggy and it locks you into a boot size partition which is too small forcing you to re-install at a later date.

yonnie wrote:The ssd drives don't seem to get a swap. I'm wondering if I should try to create a ram-drive at start-up? I haven't seen any documentation on ram-drives in years, with as cheap as ram has become, I'm wondering why it's not as popular as it used to be.

I believe from reading on the internet (so please correct me if I am wrong) - swap is old hat and is no longer a requirement. Like you said ram is so cheap most rigs have more then enough ram to run the OS and its applications that swap pages from ram to HDD is no longer required. Hence swap partitions are not created but I do belive that a swap file is created with a file size of 0 bytes in the off chance that it might be needed.

I have read also, that if a swap partition is needed then may be upgrading the memory - if it is physically possible. Some rigs are older then others and these may need a swap parition of no more then 2gb.

I think that most rigs will have much more then 2gb of ram and that is why it is not needed.

Ram disks - we used to use these on our servers many, many years ago (in the days of 386 processors). We used to load our database into memory for faster access and only writing changes to the HDD. There are a number of articles writen about how to create a ram disk in Linux but I kinda get the impression you already know this. (e.g. http://www.jamescoyle.net/how-to/943-create-a-ram-disk-in-linux)