Knoppix can't delete files!

[Dos_Box]

I basically have an old box here whose job it is to have images from weather stations FTP'd to it to be spliced together and then sent to our main web servers as .mov files. What has happened is that it has choked on the amount of old files it has collated and not deleted. The machine now refuses to boot as it says the disk is too full. I've booted from a Knoppix disk and changed the HDA1 permissions to R\W, but every time I try and delete the images it comes up with an 'Access Denied' error. The orgional OS was Ubuntu, and me not being very Linux minded am left scratching my head, as Knoppix won't let me change the file permissions. How can I delete these tens of thousands of JPGs from within Knoppix?

[AdamK]

Did you "su -" into root?
With the version of Knoppix I use it loads up as a basic user first, then to do anything you need to change to root!

EDIT:

Thats assuming your doing it through terminal. You'll prob find you'll have to do it that way.

So load up terminal

su -

cd /media/hda-xyz/location/of/files

rm -rf <files>

[Ric_]

You right-clicked on the desktop icon and changed the 'write mode' (or words to that effect) didn't you rather than changing the file permissions?

[AdamK]

I think you still don't have the permissions in write mode when accessing through the GUI, unless you were able to log on as root.

I tend to do things through terminal anyway so not 100% sure

[Dos_Box]

*meekly*
yes sir....

[Dos_Box]

OK. I'm SU'd in now. Can't get the syntax right for selecting all files in a directory. What is it?

[Dos_Box]

Boy, am I having a dumb day!

[kmount]

rm * from inside the dir will delete only files.
rm -rf * will delete files and directories below your current location.

[Dos_Box]

Ah just the * then.

[AdamK]

yup "rm -rf *" does the trick

"rm *" will only delete files and will ask if you are sure you want to delete each file

"rm -f *" will force delete of all the files in the directory

And as pointed out above, "rm -rf *" will force the deletion of all files and subfolders in the directory

[Jamo]

I always like the GUI route with Ubuntu

sudo nautilus
<password>

Then it brings up a GUI file manager with full root permissions

You prob wont have nautilus with Knoppix tho as its KDE i think, could try sudo konqueror instead