so i started up my linux box this morning and it told me that there were some system updates that i had to download, so i downloaded them and then it said that in order to use those system updates that my computer had to be restarted, so i shut everything down and rebooted…
and when it came back up, it didn’t work!
it put up the login screen, like normal, and it accepted my username and password, but then, instead of loading the desktop, it loaded what looked like a transparent graphic, only it was full screen, and a mouse cursor. no task bar, no menus… eventually a window popped up, associated with the HP printer, that said there was no systray, so whatever application it was associated with was no longer trying to start. i clicked OK – which was the only thing i could do – and it went away.
so, i hit Alt+F1 and logged in to the text interface, which it allowed me to do, and typed sudo shutdown -r now and it rebooted again. this time, instead of the transparent graphic, it stayed with the login screen, but again, didn’t get beyond allowing me to login. this time, when i hit Alt+F1 and logged in, it said that the system was using 95% of 5.9G, and the /tmp directory was using 100% of 1G, the total of which, if i’m not mistaken, is slightly more than my 6G system disk.
fortunately, my /home directory and my /music directory are on a separate, 200G disk. apparently my OS is bigger than my HD, which, technically (i suppose) means that if i got a new, bigger HD, everything would be copascetic. once again, the battle of the computer has raised its ugly head…
i was just discussing this probability with moe the other day, because of the wonkish behaviour of my monitor, and i pretty much decided that i’m going to go out and buy a new computer system at that time. it’s a good thing i decided it then, because now i’m absolutely certain that that’s what i’m going to do.
it’s going to be a desktop computer with at least a 200G hard disk, and an LCD monitor, and it will not be a computer with windoesn’t preloaded. i don’t know exactly what price i’m willing to pay, but $500 to $700 doesn’t seem too out of the question.
how do you install over a seemingly full hard disk?
Seems to be working again. A little update and all is well. Thank Prime for that. I think the new release number is intending to be an LTS one, so hopefully you’ll get a nice stable one to live off of for the next three years.
Are you still running Kubuntu? I had similar problems with the latest updates that got pushed, and I’m also having problems where I wonder where my free space went. Maybe the update’s been borked in some manner. If that’s the case, I hope they fix it soon so I can get back to what I was doing.
yep, i’m running kubuntu, but i’m running jaunty since my last go-round with the battle of the computer. seems like hardy was the last truly stable release, but i didn’t know that until it was too late. my guess is that i’ll install hardy on the new computer and see how that goes.