Disks and Partitions

This section provides instructions on how to handle disks and drives such as removable hard disks.

Checking how much disk space is available

There are several ways to see how much disk space is available on a Kubuntu system.

Check how much disk space is available via the command line

  1. Open Konsole by going to Kickoff Application LauncherApplicationsSystemTerminal (Konsole).

  2. At the prompt, type df -h

Output similar to the following should be displayed:

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda5              37G  7.6G   28G  22% /
/dev/sda1             122M   50M   67M  43% /boot
/dev/sda6              70G   34G   33G  52% /home

The command df reports file system disk space usage. The -h tells df to make the output human readable.

Check how much disk space is available via the file manager

File managers

The following procedure can be completed with either Dolphin or Konqueror. Dolphin will be shown in this example because it is the default file manager in Kubuntu.

  1. Open Dolphin by going to Kickoff Application LauncherApplicationsSystemFile Manager (Dolphin).

  2. Click on the Root shortcut button on the left.

  3. To find out how much space is available in the root partition, right click in any of the white space in the main window. Select Properties from the list that is displayed.

    Avoid highlighting an icon

    When right clicking in the white space, avoid accidentally highlighting any of the folder icons, because this will display information pertaining only to that folder.

    Example 1. Available disk space for the root device




Checking usage via Partition Manager

By default in Kubuntu, the application Partition Manager is not installed. Please install the Partition Manager package prior to doing the following procedure.

  1. Open Partition Manager by going to Kickoff Application LauncherApplicationsSystemPartition Editor (KDE Partition Manager). A password may be required.

  2. Click on the device in the Device section in the left-hand side of the main window.

  3. Remaining space can be determined by subtracting the amount in the Used column from the amount in the Size column. The information can also be displayed by right clicking on the partition in the list and selecting Properties.

    Example 2. Available disk space with Partition Manager




How can some disk space be freed up?

There are several ways of making more disk space available:

  • Empty the trash. Open Dolphin by going to Kickoff Application LauncherApplicationsSystemFile Manager (Dolphin). Click the Trash on the left, right click in the white space and select Empty Trash.

  • Install Computer Janitor for GTK first. Once installed, open Computer Janitor by going to Kickoff Application LauncherApplicationsSystemComputer Janitor. Select the Packages to be removed. When completed, click the Do selected tasks button.

    Example 3. Freeing disk space with Computer Janitor




  • Remove software packages that are no longer being used. See Managing Software for information on removing packages.

  • Delete files that are no longer needed.

    Caution

    Be careful not to delete files that are still needed!

Compress and archive old, rarely-used documents:

  • Select the files and folders to be compressed, right click one of them and select CompressAs ZIP/TAR Archive or any of the other choices.

Partitioning a device

Partition Manager can be used to partition storage devices. Install the Partition Manager package first, as it is not installed by default in Kubuntu. Once installed, open Partition Manager by going to Kickoff Application LauncherApplicationsSystemPartition Editor (KDE Partition Manager).

Caution

Be careful when altering disk partitions, as it is possible to lose data by deleting or changing the wrong partition.

For more information on using Partition Manager to resize, copy, or install a new operating system, please review http://docs.kde.org/development/en/extragear-sysadmin/partitionmanager/index.html.

Formatting a partition

Partition Manager can be used to format disk partitions. Please review http://docs.kde.org/development/en/extragear-sysadmin/partitionmanager/index.html.

What is formatting?

To format a hard disk, device or partition means to prepare that particular device to store data.

When a hard disk or partition is formatted, a specific data-storage format is applied to that device; this format is the filesystem.

A newly purchased disk is usually not formatted, and cannot yet be used for storing data. After the device has been formatted, the free space on it is less than the original size. Some of the disk space is used to make the device usable; this space is occupied by the filesystem. Also, disk manufacturers use different standards to express disk capacity, which results in further discrepancies.

What is a filesystem

A filesystem is a particular way of storing and organizing files on a storage device such as a hard disk, and is an important part of an operating system. Without a filesystem, accessing and storing files would be difficult.

There are different types of filesystem. The most common are:

  • ext2, ext3, and ext4: these are usually found on GNU/Linux operating systems. Kubuntu uses ext4 as its default filesystem.

  • FAT16 and FAT32 are Microsoft Windows filesystems found on older computers. To share data between two computers, the FAT32 format is a good choice.

  • NTFS is the filesystem type used by more modern versions of Microsoft Windows.

  • HFS+ is the Mac OS X default filesystem type.

What is a partition?

A partition is a means of dividing the storage capacity of a device, such as a hard disk, into several parts which can then be treated as separate storage devices (logical devices).

Each logical device is seen by the operating system as a distinct device, and thus is treated as an independent disk.

Partitioning a hard disk can be done for several reasons:

  • To retrieve free space

  • To install different operating systems

  • To organize data better on the hard disk

Mounting and unmounting devices

When a removable storage device is connected to a computer, it must be mounted by the operating system so the files on the device can be accessed.

When files are copied to a storage device, they are not always written to the device immediately. Instead, they are often stored in a queue so that they can all be transferred to the device at the same time (for efficiency). If the device is disconnected before all of the files have been transferred, some or all of the files may be lost. To prevent this, a storage device must be unmounted before being disconnected.

Procedure 3. Mounting a device

  1. Plug in the removable storage device.

  2. A notification menu and blue circle icon will appear in the bottom right corner of the screen. By clicking the device in the popup menu, the device will be mounted. As soon as it is mounted, either the file manager will appear or a dialog will be presented that contains a list of options for the device.

Procedure 4. Unmounting a device

  1. In the system tray, there is an icon that looks like a computer monitor that represents the Device Notifier. Click on the icon, and a popup menu will appear.

  2. Hovering above the device description with the cursor will display an eject icon on the right side. Click on the icon to unmount the removable device.