Filesystem has 0 bytes

[imakeper]

I have Zorin 16.3 pro and recently had a message pop up saying "filesystem has 0 bytes" or it would say "filesystem has ___ bytes". It would change the amount left. I posted a question in another forum and I was given some commands to try. Well, long story short, the end result was my computer wouldn't boot into Zorin anymore.

I took Windows off my computer when I installed the Zorin OS. I use Firefox or Brave for search results. I noticed when the messages started coming up that the forms I fill out online for my volunteer work would repopulate after I'd ended my information entering and saved it. Again, the same info would come up to be typed in again. This was the only thing I noticed before everything messed up.

The other forum had me try some commands and I can relay more of that info if needed.

I found out how to get to the grub BIOS and would enter the commands in the terminal under the recovery section.

The others who were helping me are baffled as to why the commands aren't achieving anything.

Could or would someone here be able to help me?

 

[osprey]

Welcome!

It would be advisable for you to show the commands you have tried and the outputs if possible so that readers can get a clearer idea of the situation.

Some observations which may or may not be relevant on what you have posted so far:

For an output like "filesystem has 0 bytes", it suggests a filesystem issue.

The second issue appears to be "my computer wouldn't boot into Zorin anymore".

In the case of the booting issue, Zorin has a built-in repair facility on its live disk which includes boot repair. It's worth considering booting the live disk and running that boot repair facility to hopefully get the system bootable.

To deal with the filesystem issue one can run a file check with the fsck command to repair a filesystem, but the command must be run on an unmounted filesystem. This can be done either from the booted up live disk, or by booting the installed system, choosing the rescue option, then the recovery mode and selecting fsck.

If those tasks can be accomplished one can try rebooting. If the machine won't reboot properly, then it's probably time to check the health of the hard drive with the smartctl facility.

 

[theLegionWithin]

presumably you have no free disk space

my first thought is to use something like Stacer to free up disk space but with zero disk space you're going to need to manually do it the first time:

journalctl --disk-usage
sudo journalctl --vacuum

alternately, clear out your package cache

sudo apt clean
sudo apt autoremove

after that I'd think you should be able to install Stacer.

 

[osprey]

presumably you have no free disk space

my first thought is to use something like Stacer to free up disk space but with zero disk space you're going to need to manually do it the first time:

journalctl --disk-usage
sudo journalctl --vacuum

alternately, clear out your package cache

sudo apt clean
sudo apt autoremove

after that I'd think you should be able to install Stacer.

Unfortunately, if the machine cannot boot, it won't be possible to run commands.

If @imakeper would be able to provide the various figures that the filesystem message was outputting, then the situation may become clearer. If the filesystem is full or too loaded to run the system, which is an apt live hypothesis, then the fsck ought to report that problem with a message like "no space left on device".

If by chance the system had logs in files like /var/log/syslog or /var/log/messages, then one could mount the root filesystem from a live disk and read them as text to see if there was any relevant info. With the journal entries, one needs to use the journalctl command from the live disk after mounting.

 

[imakeper]

Welcome!

It would be advisable for you to show the commands you have tried and the outputs if possible so that readers can get a clearer idea of the situation.

Some observations which may or may not be relevant on what you have posted so far:

For an output like "filesystem has 0 bytes", it suggests a filesystem issue.

The second issue appears to be "my computer wouldn't boot into Zorin anymore".

In the case of the booting issue, Zorin has a built-in repair facility on its live disk which includes boot repair. It's worth considering booting the live disk and running that boot repair facility to hopefully get the system bootable.

To deal with the filesystem issue one can run a file check with the fsck command to repair a filesystem, but the command must be run on an unmounted filesystem. This can be done either from the booted up live disk, or by booting the installed system, choosing the rescue option, then the recovery mode and selecting fsck.

If those tasks can be accomplished one can try rebooting. If the machine won't reboot properly, then it's probably time to check the health of the hard drive with the smartctl facility.

presumably you have no free disk space

my first thought is to use something like Stacer to free up disk space but with zero disk space you're going to need to manually do it the first time:

journalctl --disk-usage
sudo journalctl --vacuum

alternately, clear out your package cache

sudo apt clean
sudo apt autoremove

after that I'd think you should be able to install Stacer.

Thanks for your help.
I access the terminal by going through the grub BIOS and choosing recovery mode.
I ran journalctl --disk-usage and it came back saying "command journal cannot be found but can be installed with snap install journal.
I then tried snap install journal and it did nothing. There wasn't an error, just nothing.
I will try to get all my notes in order and post the outcomes.
I saw the option in the grub BIOS recovery mode something called system summary. I found this info under system summary. I'm not sure if or what it means but thought I'd relay it.

file system size used available use% mounted on
udev 3.7G 0 3.7G 0% /dev
tmpfs 764M 14M 750M 2% /run
/dev/nvme
0n1p6 199G 199G 0 100% /
tmpfs 3.8G 0 3.8G 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock
tmpfs 3.8G 0 3.8G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/nvme
0np1 256M 26M 231M 10% /boot/efi

Under memory usage
available used free shared buff/cache
MEM: 7630 181 7293 13 155
Swap: 2047 0 2047

I'll post the rest when I get it together. There have been a few or 10 commands I've been told to run so there are just a few post it notes I have to go over.

 

[imakeper]

So when I start my computer, which is an Asus vivobook, the Asus logo appears and then the Zorin logo appears below that. Then soon the Zorin goes away and there's only the Asus logo remaining. Before the Zorin logo would flash off and on a couple of times and then it would go into my internet browser page.

The commands I used started with sudo apt clean && sudo apt autoremove. This brought up the message '0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 5 not upgraded.

I ran sudo journalctl --vacuum-size=200M and this brought up "vacuuming done, freed 837.8M of archived journal from /var/log/journal/d6c74b68be2c41f6a18d4d9897e41fc8" and
"vacuuming done, freed 08 of archived journals from /run/log/journal"

I went to the grub BIOS recovery and chose "resume normal boot" and after a few minutes I got my regular screen with the internet browser back but it came with the error message "Low disk space on filesystem--Filesystem root has only 300.6 MB disk space remaining". This was what caused me to look into the problem in the first place. It asks me to examine or ignore. What should I do here?

With all that I've run, command wise, I'm not sure why it didn't do this in the first place when I was originally told to do this. Maybe a subsequent commant did something that fixed something. I don't know. I'm glad it's back to a screen now though.

What should I do at this point?

If you want more results from the commands I will post them.

 

[Mike-BTU]

I access the terminal by going through the grub BIOS and choosing recovery mode.
I ran journalctl --disk-usage and it came back saying "command journal cannot be found but can be installed with snap install journal.
I then tried snap install journal and it did nothing.

I'm pretty certain that's not the terminal you need. I think you need to boot the OS and open a real terminal, like ksh or bash.

 

[osprey]

Thanks for your help.
I found this info under system summary. I'm not sure if or what it means but thought I'd relay it.

It looks pretty clear that the root partition is full with 100% usage.
The hypothesis @theLegionWithin put in post #3 looks to be confirmed. Good one.

Commonly, a next step would be to clear the root filesystem of files which can be dispensed with so the installation can "breathe" again. Here we keep filesystems to a maximum of about 85% but rarely reach that.

One way of clearing it is to mount the root filesystem from a live disk and clear out files. These are the steps that can be taken.
Boot a live disk, say the zorin install disk, and open a terminal.

Run the following to get the full name of the root partition:

lsblk

Mount the root partition as root:

mount /dev/nvme... /mnt

Note that /dev/nvme... has to be the correct device name of the root filesystem from the output of the lsblk command. It looks to be: /dev/nvme0n1p6

Navigate to the mounted root filesystem:

cd /mnt

To see the root filesystem, run:

ls

Now it becomes a matter of judgement as to which files can be removed to make space for the system to be able to function.

To see how much space the log files are taking up you can run:

du -h /mnt/var/log

If the log files are only kilobytes large, they won't likely provide enough space if removed. If they are gigabytes in size, then removal of them may be sufficient.

With 199G on the root filesystem it would be useful to remove at least 15G. It could get away with less but I'd aim for at least that.

If removal of the logs is insufficient, then the next directory to check would the home directory:

cd /mnt/home

Look for large files that you can remove and remove them. If you want to back up files, you can plug in an external drive or a usb thumb drive, mount it and transfer the files to either one or both. When finished, umount /mnt, exit, remove the live disk and see if the machine will reboot.

EDIT:

Now that I've read your post #6, if you can boot into the system, which is suggested there, then you can try and remove files before you do anything else like start a browser. This post #7 above was prepared before I read your post #6. If you could boot up to a text prompt it would likely be possible to delete enough files to make room from there without having to use a live disk.

 

[imakeper]

It looks pretty clear that the root partition is full with 100% usage.
The hypothesis @theLegionWithin put in post #3 looks to be confirmed. Good one.

Commonly, a next step would be to clear the root filesystem of files which can be dispensed with so the installation can "breathe" again. Here we keep filesystems to a maximum of about 85% but rarely reach that.

One way of clearing it is to mount the root filesystem from a live disk and clear out files. These are the steps that can be taken.
Boot a live disk, say the zorin install disk, and open a terminal.

Run the following to get the full name of the root partition:

lsblk

Mount the root partition as root:

mount /dev/nvme... /mnt

Note that /dev/nvme... has to be the correct device name of the root filesystem from the output of the lsblk command. It looks to be: /dev/nvme0n1p6

Navigate to the mounted root filesystem:

cd /mnt

To see the root filesystem, run:

ls

Now it becomes a matter of judgement as to which files can be removed to make space for the system to be able to function.

To see how much space the log files are taking up you can run:

du -h /mnt/var/log

If the log files are only kilobytes large, they won't likely provide enough space if removed. If they are gigabytes in size, then removal of them may be sufficient.

With 199G on the root filesystem it would be useful to remove at least 15G. It could get away with less but I'd aim for at least that.

If removal of the logs is insufficient, then the next directory to check would the home directory:

cd /mnt/home

Look for large files that you can remove and remove them. If you want to back up files, you can plug in an external drive or a usb thumb drive, mount it and transfer the files to either one or both. When finished, umount /mnt, exit, remove the live disk and see if the machine will reboot.

EDIT:

Now that I've read your post #6, if you can boot into the system, which is suggested there, then you can try and remove files before you do anything else like start a browser. This post #7 above was prepared before I read your post #6. If you could boot up to a text prompt it would likely be possible to delete enough files to make room from there without having to use a live disk.

I've read through all you said. It's a little over my head but what I understand at this point is that I would be able to fix this problem by removing files. When you say files are you talking about files that automatically are installed with linux that I don't use or are you talking about files I personally have in libre say? I appreciate your patience with my ignorance.

Also, when the computer came back on it has a message that there's an update available. Should I just ignore this until I get files cleared out or install the update?

One last thing, I don't have anything on my computer. I don't game with it and I have no more than 50 actual document files. My computer is quite empty of programs. I don't know if there is an correlation but is this tied to firefox and maybe things that haven't been cleared like the cache or cookies. I was thinking the browser and what I do on it is separate from the linux system.

I am guilty of not clearing out my cache or cookies often.

 

[Mike-BTU]

Also, when the computer came back on it has a message that there's an update available. Should I just ignore this until I get files cleared out or install the update?

Do not install the update. Ignore it until you have more space.

 

[Mike-BTU]

How to clear cache and temp files in Linux to speed up your system fast

If your Linux system is running slow - or running low on disk space - try deleting cache and temp files to solve the problem.

www.zdnet.com

 

[imakeper]

How to clear cache and temp files in Linux to speed up your system fast

If your Linux system is running slow - or running low on disk space - try deleting cache and temp files to solve the problem.

www.zdnet.com

But what cache are you referring to? The cache of my firefox or the cache of my linux files? If it is my linux cache that needs to be deleted where and how do I do that?

 

[Mike-BTU]

But what cache are you referring to? The cache of my firefox or the cache of my linux files? If it is my linux cache that needs to be deleted where and how do I do that?

Doesn't that article explain all that?

I have company, or I would help more.

 

[imakeper]

Previously I had asked a different forum for help so I went back to read through the help they gave me and saw that I had failed to run the sudo journalctl --vacuum command. I did that and afterwards I was able to "resume normal boot" in the grub BIOS. This gave me back my home page of the computer because it booted into zorin now.

I was then told to type Disk Usage Analyzer from the app menu. I wasn't quite sure where the app menu was and I put this phrase in the search box of the left lower part of my screen that's right above the zorin logo. It must have been the wrong place because it just took me out of my home screen and I'm unable to boot into zorin again.

I was also told to try it using GUI

sudo -i

nautilus

Navigate to "Other location" in the left pane, then select "Computer" in the right pane.

Double click on var then on tmp, select all contained files inside of /var/tmp and right click, delete.
Repeat this for /var/log/

I was able to do this and moved to trash many files.

I know this is confusing to you and it's really confusing to me. I don't know exactly why I'm doing these things or even where I should be doing them.

I'm not going back to the other forum anymore. I noticed there wasn't much help for me and then I got an email the same day saying zorin os 16.3 pro isn't going to be supported after the end of this month so I think that may be why. I want to get my computer working right so I can upgrade.

Any way you can help, I will greatly appreciate.

 

[imakeper]

I am going to start at the beginning to keep the steps it straight in my head. I ran so many commands I lost track. Not having a full understanding about how Linux works, I admit I'm quite ignorant about most of it, but I'm catching on quickly.

I'm sorry but I'm working on my old computer with zorin 16.3 os lite and I'm not familiar with the photo editor and couldn't find a way quickly to turn this the right side up. This is what dpkg --list 'linux-image*' brought up.

 

[imakeper]

I ran journalctl --disk-usage and it said: Archived and active journals take up 8.0M in the file system.

I ran sudo journalctl --vacuum-size=zoom. The response was Vacuuming done freed 838.8M of archived journals.
I attached the result of the System Summary. I had to do it in three attachments.

 

[osprey]

I ran journalctl --disk-usage and it said: Archived and active journals take up 8.0M in the file system.

I ran sudo journalctl --vacuum-size=zoom. The response was Vacuuming done freed 838.8M of archived journals.
I attached the result of the System Summary. I had to do it in three attachments.

It is clear from the output shown in the image provided by the following line, that the root filesystem is full, and therefore the installation will not work as intended, as mentioned in post #8:

Filesystem     Size Avail  Used  Mounted on
/dev/nvme0n1p6 199G 0      100%   /

There are anomalies in the reports on this system, since in post #6 it was mentioned that the machine returned to normal boot though with a message about the full filesystem.

Perhaps if you could provide more details on the partitioning of the system with the output of the following command from a terminal which you can paste here:

lsblk

 

[imakeper]

It is clear from the output shown in the image provided by the following line, that the root filesystem is full, and therefore the installation will not work as intended, as mentioned in post #8:

Filesystem     Size Avail  Used  Mounted on
/dev/nvme0n1p6 199G 0      100%   /

There are anomalies in the reports on this system, since in post #6 it was mentioned that the machine returned to normal boot though with a message about the full filesystem.

Perhaps if you could provide more details on the partitioning of the system with the output of the following command from a terminal which you can paste here:

lsblk

As far as the system working before, I had not run the journalctl vacuum size command when I though I had so then when I did it was able to boot into zorin. BUUUTTTT.....the next thing I was told was to search for disk usage analyzer I believe in the app search. I thought this meant to put this phrase into the search box that comes up above the Zorin logo on the bottom left of my screen. When I did, it took my computer back to not booting in Zorin again.

Here is the result:

 

[osprey]

As far as the system working before, I had not run the journalctl vacuum size command when I though I had so then when I did it was able to boot into zorin. BUUUTTTT.....the next thing I was told was to search for disk usage analyzer I believe in the app search. I thought this meant to put this phrase into the search box that comes up above the Zorin logo on the bottom left of my screen. When I did, it took my computer back to not booting in Zorin again.

Here is the result:

Thanks for that output. The linux installation is using about half the disk and there's something else on the other half which hasn't been identified, so readers don't know about it.

It would be useful to know what the other half of the disk is occupied with? Free space?

In post #1 it was mentioned that Windows was taken off the computer, so presumably the machine is not dual booting with MS.

There are a number of things that can be done in this situation, and I guess you need to decide which route you wish to take.

Since things are "confusing" to you, one way is simply to re-install zorin, or any linux distro. Zorin is currently at version 17.3, so installing that would provide you with an updated and improved system. If the computer is in good condition, this is a straight forward option to leave the issues behind and acquire a nice upto date system that's usable.

If, on the other hand you wish to try and repair this system, then there are means to do it, or to discover whether it's possible, but they will likely involve a learning curve which may be steeper than you are inclined to climb.

Since you mentioned in post #9 that you did not have many files and the computer is "empty of programs", then the reasons why the root filesystem is full, is quite unclear and best investigated. A normal root filesystem for zorin might take up to upto about 20G, so having 199G full is suspicious.

The second route to take, in my view, would likely involve the following things:
As a preliminary step, boot to text prompt to see if the system can operate without a GUI, thereby having a minimal load for the system to work. If that works, then one could try to do some checking without resorting to a live disk or rescue disk.

Otherwise:

Run a live disk or rescue disk and mount the nvme disk.

Check the health of the nvme drive with smartmontools.

File check the filesystem with the fsck command.

If the drive passes, then navigate around the mounted system, check what can usefully be deleted, like logs, caches, files in /home/$USER. If the unallocated part of the drive is available, it can potentially be included into the existing installation to increase the space for the filesystem through the use of the gparted partitioning tool, and this may alleviate the need to remove files.

Other readers may have alternative approaches which can achieve what you'd like to have done.

 

[imakeper]

Thanks for that output. The linux installation is using about half the disk and there's something else on the other half which hasn't been identified, so readers don't know about it.

It would be useful to know what the other half of the disk is occupied with? Free space?

In post #1 it was mentioned that Windows was taken off the computer, so presumably the machine is not dual booting with MS.

There are a number of things that can be done in this situation, and I guess you need to decide which route you wish to take.

Since things are "confusing" to you, one way is simply to re-install zorin, or any linux distro. Zorin is currently at version 17.3, so installing that would provide you with an updated and improved system. If the computer is in good condition, this is a straight forward option to leave the issues behind and acquire a nice upto date system that's usable.

If, on the other hand you wish to try and repair this system, then there are means to do it, or to discover whether it's possible, but they will likely involve a learning curve which may be steeper than you are inclined to climb.

Since you mentioned in post #9 that you did not have many files and the computer is "empty of programs", then the reasons why the root filesystem is full, is quite unclear and best investigated. A normal root filesystem for zorin might take up to upto about 20G, so having 199G full is suspicious.

The second route to take, in my view, would likely involve the following things:
As a preliminary step, boot to text prompt to see if the system can operate without a GUI, thereby having a minimal load for the system to work. If that works, then one could try to do some checking without resorting to a live disk or rescue disk.

Otherwise:

Run a live disk or rescue disk and mount the nvme disk.

Check the health of the nvme drive with smartmontools.

File check the filesystem with the fsck command.

If the drive passes, then navigate around the mounted system, check what can usefully be deleted, like logs, caches, files in /home/$USER. If the unallocated part of the drive is available, it can potentially be included into the existing installation to increase the space for the filesystem through the use of the gparted partitioning tool, and this may alleviate the need to remove files.

Other readers may have alternative approaches which can achieve what you'd like to have done.

I would like to repair what the problem is in order to learn from this situation.

So I tried to find what booting into text prompt means and I found this command: sudo nano /etc/default/grub. Is that correct?