Firefox 3.6.13 Tools/Downloads

[#1]

An odd one for 2011. Ubuntu 8.04 (sorry! not got to 10.04.1 yet) on Pentium Laptop. Tried to download latest utterance from Update Manager...something to do with lib and emacs which never appeared to finish. Later on tried to downlaod an attachment to an email and got an error message that implied that the storage of downloads was full. Subsequently if I select Tools/Downloads in Firefox it crashes back to the Ubuntu opening page. I cannot locate where downloads are stored to see if that is the problem. It has been suggested that ~/downloads ought to be the location but not so. Any ideas???
colintivy 

[#2]

Have a look in /tmp it is probably full.

[#3]

Have a look to see if /var is full.
You can safely clean package downloads - ie the bits to be installed with the command

sudo apt-get clean

This does not wipe your installed software!
Indeed, I do this every few days....

[#4]

Jeremy
Thamks for that, I have looked at /var but it does not seem to be unduly full and I noite that if I try to delete any of the folders, this is greyed out. I fear that my problem is much more in the intersticies of Ubuntu.  When the original download  failed, I diid observe a lot of disk activity  which looks like a lot of guph has been deposited somewhere which is clogging the works. Note that I am writing this on my old Dell with XP Pro. because, although much of Ububtu does work well there appear to be a problem with saving documents with  error messages saying "no room on your disk" or words to that effect. I also find that if I select Applications sometimes nothing happens. I am keen to get the whole OS updated which might get over the problem so I will try to get /home on its own partition asap if that is possible, I have got that backed up on an USB drive, I have got live disks of  9.10 which seems to be ok and 10.04 which seems to not want to go to Live mode. Update Manager offers upgrade to 10.04.1, is it possible to try that from either of the two disks and get things right up to date?
Thanks,
Colin

[#5]

It sounds as if one of your partitions is full; trying to update the system when it's telling you it's short of disk space wouldn't be very clever.
What is the output of running df -h from a termial - you should see something similar to this:

$ df -h
Filesystem     Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/ad6s2a    989M    346M    564M    38%    /
devfs          1.0K    1.0K      0B   100%    /dev
/dev/ad6s2g     12G    4.7G    6.2G    43%    /home
/dev/ad6s2d    989M    264M    646M    29%    /tmp
/dev/ad6s2f     19G     16G    1.5G    92%    /usr
/dev/ad6s2e    1.9G    262M    1.5G    14%    /var

[#6]

Quote from: colintivy

Thamks for that, I have looked at /var but it does not seem to be unduly full and I noite that if I try to delete any of the folders, this is greyed out...

Don't do that! /var (and other places) contain vital files.
The directories in /var are protected from deletion by ordinary users as a protective measure.
Ubuntu 10.04.1 is just 10.04 + a couple of months of updates, so that would be the way to go.
AFAIK /tmp gets cleared when you reboot - but post a copy of your df -h output before upgrading anything.

[#7]

Since you are having so many problems with Ubuntu why not try Mint out and see if it makes any difference?

[#8]

Hi all, thanks for quick responses. I think that all is now revealed, how to get out of it is now the problem. Because I cannot save anything, I have transcribed what the df -h showed:-
Filesystem          Size    Used    Avail    use%    Mounted on
/dev/sda1              12G      12G        0        100%      /
varrun                    248M  116K      248M      1%      /var/run
varlock                  248M      0        248M      0%      /var/lock
udev                      248M    60K      248M      1%      /dev
devshm                  248M    24K      248M      1%    /dev/shm
lrm                        248M    40M      209M      16%    /lib/modules/2.6.24-28-generic/volatile
overflow                  118M    100K    924K      10%  /tmp
gvfs-fuse-daemon    12G      12G          0        100%  /home/colin.gvfs

I hope this sheds light!!!
colin

[#9]

PS to my last,  I am astonished at the size of the last item of my post, particularly because when I look at /.gvs in file browser, it says it is empty!!! It is so large it looks as though that is the cause of the disk filling up. I do not know what this item does but it would explain the disk activity that I saw when disaster struck. Any views???
Colin

[#10]

First line is the important line:
/dev/sda1               12G      12G        0        100%      /
This is the "root" of the hard disk and means it is full up with data.
Last line is some sort of virtual file system and is reporting full probably due to the above.
[Edit]
run "ls /" and then "du -sh" on listed directories (apart from /proc and /var)
to see where all the data usage is
eg
du -sh /home
du -sh /tmp
etc
JymboP

[#11]

You won't see all files unless you use the sudo command...
e.g.

sudo ls -lha /
sudo du -sh /home
sudo du -sh /tmp

etc...
BTW Have you ever emptied your wastebasket (just a thought)

[#12]

Another thought is did you install as a WUBI install ? That would explain the .givs file.

[#13]

Colin, have you been using SimpleBackup to create your backups?
It, and/or gvs-fuse seem to have been responsible for problems similar to yours on Ubuntu 8.04.
See here and here.

[#14]

If it's a backup problem, try

sudo du -h /var/backup | sort -k2

This will list all your backups, in date order (replace /var/backup with an appropriate alternative, if you don't use the default).
You should see something like

58G 	/backup
8.5G	/backup/2010-12-07_07.24.10.797118.HECTOR.ful
215M	/backup/2010-12-08_14.01.42.894109.HECTOR.inc
210M	/backup/2010-12-09_20.00.10.569687.HECTOR.inc
183M	/backup/2010-12-10_06.40.37.532042.HECTOR.inc
229M	/backup/2010-12-11_07.48.30.015547.HECTOR.inc
215M	/backup/2010-12-12_19.22.54.489210.HECTOR.inc
161M	/backup/2010-12-13_17.35.15.881932.HECTOR.inc
8.5G	/backup/2010-12-14_13.17.53.385861.HECTOR.ful
212M	/backup/2010-12-15_08.30.25.231236.HECTOR.inc
... etc

[#15]

Hi folks! These give me enough to get on with, at least I was right to think that I am not the only one!! Thanks to all correspondents.
@ HB.... Original install was from Live CD not WUBI.
@ Waldo....Yes Simple Backup was  used because it was there! All the backups were saved on an external USB Stick. The two refs need detailed reading and look bang on the subject, Thanks.
@ jeremy....sudo looks the best way to examine the files.Thanks
Retires for time to get down to that volume of info, will report findings when I have some.
colintivy