Did I really mess up that fast?

Software & Operating Systems Linux
1

Well, I was downloading a whole bunch of things onto linux (skype, java, some other stuff) using "fedy" my computer told me I was running low on hdd space, so I reviewed what the window said, made no sense of it, and just closed it. Once the terminal was done (i think) it told me something hadnt downloaded properly, and I cant remember what I typed next into the terminal, but some chart thingy with a whole bunch of numbers and words I have no clue what it was talking about poped up and was doing stuff, so I left it alone and went to eat dinner... and when I came back the window was still doing stuff, but I wanted to restart fedora, so I closed the terminal, even though it told me not to, and when I went to try restarting my computer, the power button option was missing (clicked top right corner, empty space where the power button is suppose to be) so i thought nothing was happening, just some weird bug or something so, I held my computers power button, turned it off, turned it back on, tried loading fedora... and then nothing... It wouldnt go past this type of screen: 

http://fedorapeople.org/groups/designteam/design-team/designteam/Fedora%20Collateral/Posters/Fathead%20Logo%20Posters/fedora-fathead-2ft_300dpi.ng.png

That was in the middle of the screen, and it didnt load... so I force restarted my computer again, and 2 other version of fedora, alongside my vista dualboot poped up (dual boot option was always there) so I chose the same thing, nothing loaded, force restart, didnt load past that image, tried second option of fedora (there were 3, and 1 windows vista option) and it did the same thing, restarted, tried the last one, and it still didnt work. So now, im in windows writing this, and thinking I might have corrupted fedora in less than 2 hours... Like, I know im a linux noob, BUT REALLY? 

I need help .-.

2

"I ran out of disk space so I randomly typed in some commands" You probably deleted a bunch of files or something.

"I closed it even though it told me not to" Being experienced. Why... Why would you do that?

"What do I do now?" Reinstall it. And don't do what you did the first time again..

You corrupted the shit out of your installation.

3

General rule man, don't bail out when the terminal seems busy and you don't know exactly what it's doing.
Especially if it tells you not to.

Common sense, bro. Do what Phantom said.

4

Well, I learned from my terrible, terrible mistakes, and i'm still a noob. Also, when the power button doesn't show, what does it mean? Also, how do I remove everything fedora (including the dual boot) from within windows vista?

5

Haha, welcome to the world of Linux.  You will learn eventually.  Research is your best friend.

6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAWBZq04Izc

I've used this method more than once to remove linux from a dual boot and removing the dual boot menu, along with reinstalling windows MBR. I'm sure theres other methods available.

7

Yeah, 15 GB for a full Fedora install is not enough. What happened is that Fedora was downloading all these updates, and it uses DeltaRPM to download only the bits that have changed, so it caches the entire changing application to rebuild it. Because it multitasks like crazy, that can take quite a few gigabytes of space for the maybe 500+ updated packages that are being rebuild simultaneously. You just didn't have that space, so it was RAM caching all the time and solving the issue, which may take a long time, whereas if there were enough storage space, it would have taken a couple of minutes. It would have made it though, if you hadn't hard booted the system, serious linux distros always make it. You basically killed the system amidst rebuilding of almost all system-critical packages. You can still save it, you can always save linux, but it's probably much more time efficient to just install it again. You don't have to remove it, just tell the installer to replace the existing linux install. It will leave the Windows install alone, write a new grub, etc... but give it some more storage space, I would advise at least 20 GB for / and 50 GB for /home.

8

Well later today I'm just gonna go out and buy a WD blue 1tb HDD and just install fedora onto it. I know its over kill, but I've been needing a new HDD recently so whatever I'll just get it. 

Few questions:when the option for turning off my computer doesn't show what does it mean, and how would I make it show? 

Since I'll be getting the 1tb HDD, but will only want to use half of its space for fedora, how many GB/mb would I put for "/", "/home","/boot" and "swap"?

9
  • 20-30 GB for /
  • 1 GB for /boot (in case you decide you want more linux distros installed, you can use the same partition for the /boot directory of each distro, they will put their own kernel and initramfs images there, and grub will configure itself accordingly)
  • none for /swap, if you have at least 4 GB of RAM. If you have less, then make /swap as large as your RAM.
  • the rest for /home

 

10

I have 4GB of ddr2 ram in my system, so would I make my swap 4Gb also? 

11

When I make a swap, I follow a 1.5 to 1 ratio of HDD space to memory. 4GB of RAM, 6GB swap. 

12

I have 4 GB too, and I don't have a swap partition. I haven't encountered any problems so far, but I'm not using my laptop for anything demanding. I would say it's up to you. Try using your computer for awhile with a swap partition, then without, see what is best for you.

13

"Did I really mess up that quickly?"

Yes. Yes you did.

 

14

Alright, I got fedora working on the HDD. I made my swap 6Gb, /home 400GB+ , boot 1GB and / 30 or 50GB, can't remember. Now I'm attempting to download fedy so I can download a whole bunch of programs that I want. 

After I'm done that, how will I install adobe flash? I'm still a very big Linux noob and don't know how to do it. 

And this time, I'll try not to mess up.