Troubleshooting Over The Phone
I just helped someone unbork their Ubuntu system over the phone. It was reporting “disk full”, without being more specific than that. I got him to open up a terminal window, and use the “df” and “du” commands to narrow down the directory that was filling up the disk. Sometimes /tmp gets filled up with stuff, but in this case it was /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/. I have had an instance of high disk usage on that directory myself, a while back. I think it’s where apt keeps partially-downloaded repo index files, though I’m not sure why—is it to retry downloading the rest? But when the problem hits, it just seems to fill up with failed downloads. So I carefully led him up to executing the command “sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/*”, and that cleared the problem. The main thing I was careful with was spelling out the commands phonetically, and getting him to read them back to me. But imagine having to do this with a GUI, over the phone. I don’t think I would even try...
Getting them to share their screen and then talk on the phone over it could be a solution for GUI. cheers, William. On Thu, Jul 23, 2015 at 7:40 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo(a)geek-central.gen.nz> wrote:
I just helped someone unbork their Ubuntu system over the phone. It was reporting “disk full”, without being more specific than that. I got him to open up a terminal window, and use the “df” and “du” commands to narrow down the directory that was filling up the disk. Sometimes /tmp gets filled up with stuff, but in this case it was /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/.
I have had an instance of high disk usage on that directory myself, a while back. I think it’s where apt keeps partially-downloaded repo index files, though I’m not sure why—is it to retry downloading the rest? But when the problem hits, it just seems to fill up with failed downloads.
So I carefully led him up to executing the command “sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/*”, and that cleared the problem.
The main thing I was careful with was spelling out the commands phonetically, and getting him to read them back to me.
But imagine having to do this with a GUI, over the phone. I don’t think I would even try... _______________________________________________ wlug mailing list | wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz Unsubscribe: http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug
But imagine having to do this with a GUI, over the phone. I don’t think I would even try...
Well you could try telling someone the following over the phone and they might end up with an empty /var/lib/apt/lists/partial folder... type "control" "alt" "t" in the terminal window type: "gksu nautilus" enter password click on "Computer" double-click on "var" double-click on "lib" double-click on "apt" double-click on "lists" double-click on "partial" move the mouse to the menu bar and click on "Edit" on the drop down menu click on "Select All" right click in the nautilus window to display a menu left click "Move to the Rubbish Bin". close nautilus close the terminal window In summary: 3 keyboard entry's and 12 mouse clicks. ...but you might need to also do a sudo apt-get install gksu
On Thu, 23 Jul 2015 21:15:02 +1200, Ian Stewart wrote:
in the terminal window type: "gksu nautilus" enter password click on "Computer"
Does it have functions to determine directory usage?
In summary: 3 keyboard entry's and 12 mouse clicks.
Not counting the steps to actually find the culprit directory in the first place.
participants (3)
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Ian Stewart -
Lawrence D'Oliveiro -
William Mckee