Low Disk Space Plus Errors (Solved}

[Alexzee]

Ok, I installed LM 21.1 Cinnamon approximately 6 months or more.
Started having the 'low disk space on file system root' message last week so I opened the Update MGR and removed old kernels to free up space. Still have the same message today about space.
Looking at Disk Analyzer there's still 10 Gig's of space available:-

Odd Performances issue's today:
I can't attach a file to my post when clearly it's in my Downloads directory.
The Update MGR is not in the system tray and it fails to launch if I select it from the start menu. If I attempt to use the command-line to update the system bash bellyaches that their isn't enough space on the disk / nvme.
Brave which I've had installed since the fresh installation was uninstalled and I didn't remove it.
If I want to check Gmail I have to keep signing in over and over again.

Screenshots fail and report:

Unable To Capture Screenshot
Error creating file. Please choose another location

When Mint boots to the desktop I have the following error messages:

Error Activating XKB Configuration.
There can be various reasons for that.

Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 232.89 GiB, 250059350016 bytes, 488397168 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 250GB        
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 2FD2B395-3903-4413-9361-D79C4464B3CB

Device           Start       End   Sectors  Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1    2048   3999743   3997696  1.9G EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p2 3999744 488396799 484397056  231G Linux filesystem

Ideas gentlemen?

 

[atanere]

Looking at Disk Analyzer...

Try another tool?

df -h

 

[Alexzee]

Try another tool?

df -h

Alex:  df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
tmpfs           1.6G  1.8M  1.6G   1% /run
/dev/nvme0n1p2  227G  217G     0 100% /
tmpfs           7.8G     0  7.8G   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           5.0M  4.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
/dev/nvme0n1p1  2.0G  6.1M  1.9G   1% /boot/efi
tmpfs           1.6G  1.6M  1.6G   1% /run/user/1000

Maybe I need a more lightweight distribution for this nvme?

 

[atanere]

That 10GB doesn't seem to count as "free space" as you can see with that output (100% in Use). It's just too small now to use.

It's not the distro, I don't think. Even Linux Mint Cinnamon is less than 15GB on fresh install, maybe less than 10GB. It could be a log file run amok, or you may have filled it up with files (music? video?) quicker than you realized. Timeshift is also often guilty if you have it set to take automatic snapshots. There are many commands to help figure out where the space is being consumed. I just found this online, give it a go to see if it helps:

du -shx /* | sort -rh | head

[EDIT]
You can use sudo on the command above or not. It may access a bit more to compare with.

If /home is your biggest folder, you can dig deeper in there by modifying the command:

du -shx /home/alex/* | sort -rh | head

 

[Alexzee]

That 10GB doesn't seem to count as "free space" as you can see with that output (100% in Use). It's just too small now to use.

It's not the distro, I don't think. Even Linux Mint Cinnamon is less than 15GB on fresh install, maybe less than 10GB. It could be a log file run amok, or you may have filled it up with files (music? video?) quicker than you realized. Timeshift is also often guilty if you have it set to take automatic snapshots. There are many commands to help figure out where the space is being consumed. I just found this online, give it a go to see if it helps:

du -shx /* | sort -rh | head

[EDIT]
You can use sudo on the command above or not. It may access a bit more to compare with.

If /home is your biggest folder, you can dig deeper in there by modifying the command:

du -shx /home/alex/* | sort -rh | head

Looks like Timeshift is the culprit--
BTW I just deleted 10 Gig's of videos so that helped.

125G    /timeshift
70G    /home
8.3G    /usr
4.8G    /var
1.3G    /opt
428M    /media
305M    /boot
29M    /etc
1.8M    /run
56K    /tmp

I'll spend more time on this later. Gotta run:-
Thanks, atanere!

 

[atanere]

Glad you found it! I think you'll want to use Timeshift to delete the excess, if possible. Maybe delete them all and start over fresh would be a good way to go after you get everything cleaned up and working correctly.

 

[KGIII]

Yeah, remove that /timeshift and start saving your TimeShift backups to an external drive.

That should resolve it.

 

[APTI]

It sounds like you have a low disk space on the root which looks like a Logical Volume issue. That means that your linux mint is using LVM which was used on fedora until recently. you need to take free space from your home partition and move it to your root partition. The above suggestions may help release room on the home partition but you will likely need to do the following. From what I read linux mint does use LVM.

Let me start that the old kernels do not take up much space. Video files are what take up lots of space. so free up space on your home partition first. then go on to the following. You must determine which drive is which and keep it straight. You may need to install the lvmtools to do this.

these are my notes on this.

move space from one partition in LVM to another.

boot into a single user mode. hit e to edit the line during boot when you see the list of OS's
go to the linux line (longest one) hit "end" then type runlevel 1

finish the boot process you will be in a terminal mode

df-h will show you drives and how much is used.
blkid will show you the drives

note which ones you need to adjust

lvreduce --resizefs --size -{how much example 10G} {drive path} -- this reduces that partition size
example lvreduce --resizefs --size -15G /dev/nvme0n1p2 would take 15 gig away from this drive

lvextend --resizefs --size +{how much example 10G} {drive path} -- will add the space to that partition.
example lvextend --resizefs --size +15 /dev/nvme0n1p1 would add those 15 gig to this drive.

 

[osprey]

The df output in post #3 doesn't look like LVM. LVM usually has device names of the form: /dev/<VolumeGroupName>/<LogicalVolumeName>, or /dev/mapper/...

 

[APTI]

The df output in post #3 doesn't look like LVM. LVM usually has device names of the form: /dev/<VolumeGroupName>/<LogicalVolumeName>, or /dev/mapper/...

I am not a mint expert so you may be right, but mint according to what I saw does often use it. If it is then that is his solution. Otherwise something similar but he may need more room in the root partition according to his message. Similar procedure different tool.
Clearly the backup is on the hard drive which is pointless and that is also taking room. If he needs my info at least he has it, if he has no LVM it will just not work.

 

[Alexzee]

Glad you found it! I think you'll want to use Timeshift to delete the excess, if possible. Maybe delete them all and start over fresh would be a good way to go after you get everything cleaned up and working correctly.

Deleted all of the snapshot's in Timeshift and deleted a boat load of pic's, videos and old files.
Major difference. I now have 152 Gig's available.-

Alex:  df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
tmpfs           1.6G  1.8M  1.6G   1% /run
/dev/nvme0n1p2  227G   85G  131G  40% /
tmpfs           7.8G     0  7.8G   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           5.0M  4.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
/dev/nvme0n1p1  2.0G  6.1M  1.9G   1% /boot/efi
tmpfs           1.6G  100K  1.6G   1% /run/user/1000

Fresh reboot and the Update MGR is working again. Those cmd's were helpful, thanks!

 

[Alexzee]

Yeah, remove that /timeshift and start saving your TimeShift backups to an external drive.

That should resolve it.

That solved the issue.

 

[Alexzee]

The df output in post #3 doesn't look like LVM. LVM usually has device names of the form: /dev/<VolumeGroupName>/<LogicalVolumeName>, or /dev/mapper/...

Nope, your correct: not a LVM--

 

[KGIII]

That solved the issue.

You can also visualize disk usage in a handy GUI.

 

[Alexzee]

I am not a mint expert so you may be right, but mint according to what I saw does often use it. If it is then that is his solution. Otherwise something similar but he may need more room in the root partition according to his message. Similar procedure different tool.
Clearly the backup is on the hard drive which is pointless and that is also taking room. If he needs my info at least he has it, if he has no LVM it will just not work.

If I go back to Fedora I can use the info. Thanks-

 

[Alexzee]

You can also visualize disk usage in a handy GUI.

Took less then 3 minutes to installed. It's cool, I like it.

 

[Alexzee]

Thanks guys for your support!

 

[Condobloke]

Looks like Timeshift is the culprit--

Save your Timeshift snapshots to an External drive....and limiy the number of snapshots being taken

My timeshift setup

 

[bob466]

Low Disk space is something I've never had...I have only one partition (500GB) created by the installer. I do the general small clean now and then...of cause I never allow the Drive to fill up either.