Question about System Monitor

[osprey]

I found something this afternoon which might be causing the problem.

Seems that when I create anything, file, video etc then it automatically saves it to the media/David/data directory. It could be that this has become full due to me making a video the other day and saving it. Only today did I discover this and move the 'save to' directory onto the external hard drive. But I still cannot remove stuff on the media/david/data file.

The output of the filesystem in post #1 shows that the root filesystem "/dev/nvme... /" is a 250.4GB partition that has used 236.3GB, and only has 1.3GB available. That means that about 99.5% of the root filesystem is used.

A linux system works optimally when the root filesystem is used up to about 80%. As the percentage usage rises from that point, the chances of deteriorated performance rises. By the time the percentage figure reaches into the mid 90s, some seriously poor performance starts to occur until high 90s percentages just sees the system falter altogether until it eventually just stops. The experiences you describe are consistent with symptoms of the filling and near full root filesystem.

The resolution to the problem is to remove files from the root partition. After that, one can deal with the rest of the filesystem.

The image of the system monitor output in post #1 has truncated the full name of the root partition. It's the second item in the listing of the second image.

Clearer better information would come from the following two commands in a terminal:

lsblk

df -h

It would help readers if you could provide the output of those commands, preferably in code tags.

If unsure of how to use code tags, please see here: https://linux.org/threads/the-code-tag-and-why-it-matters.57746/#post-276419

To find out the directories and/or files that are using the most space on the root partition, you can run the following command as root in a terminal to find the top 30 directories or files that are using space:

du -hxa / |sort -hr | head -n 30

That command may take a little time, some seconds, to run, so the user needs to wait till it finishes. If you provide those details, (in code tags), readers will be in a better position to see what can be done to resolve the issue. There's certainly no need to re-install at this point without having the relevant information.

Once one has dealt with the root filesystem, the other disks and partitions can be managed.

I note that similar commands have been requested in earlier posts by @CaffeineAddict and @Mike-BTU but since the outputs haven't been forthcoming, I've repeated similar requests. I think readers really need that information to provide the best help.

 

[KGIII]

a 250.4GB partition that has used 263.3GB

I didn't go back to look at the picture, but that strikes me as impossible. That'd be a storage device using more data than it can store. I'm thinking there's a typo there.

I think the OP is relatively new to Linux and doesn't really understand the issues. I made an effort to show them how to find large files and mentioned that they could use that information to clean things up. They did not appear interested in doing that. It may be that doing so is more complicated than they are ready for.

As mentioned earlier, my assumption (which is worth little) is that they have some sort of automated process that's filled up the space, or they tried to download the entire internet and are storing in in their ~/Downloads directory. Without more information, that's not something I can move forward with.

 

[bob466]

David,

To help you understand...I've plugged in my External SSD and my Ventoy Flash Drive...forget the Home folder...

The First Drive is my internal SSD...showing available Disk space...357.3GB.

The next is my Ventoy Flash Drive and the last one is my External 1TB SSD.

The above shows my internal SSD...my External SSD and my Ventoy Flash Drive...at any time I can reduce the Disk space by removing things from the above...it's that easy.

As I said never touch the boot/efi Partition because if you do...you're screwed and your system won't boot.

Go to Menu and type disks and hit Enter...this brings up the Disk Utility which shows the same...

The above shows my External SSD has been selected and gives information...as you can see.
Learning all of this takes time..but you'll soon get the hang of it.
Hope this helps.

 

[wizardfromoz]

"/dev/nvme... /" is a 250.4GB partition that has used 263.3GB

Typo there, last figure there should be 236.3 GB.

Wiz

 

[osprey]

Typo there, last figure there should be 236.3 GB.

Wiz

Thanks wiz, typo now amended. Thanks @KGIII too in post #22.

 

[theLegionWithin]

I cannot get my head around what is happening. Sorry. I'm a bit thick.

This is the latest screenshot from the system just now. As you can see one of the files has reduced from 92% whilst the other is showing 99-100%
I've tried closing down various processes but nothing seems to affect the figures.

yowzers that nvme is super full!

I'd recommend getting an external ssd - when there's a sale amazon (or your preferred retailer) will typically have a 2tb external drive available for less than $100. copy whatever you want to keep to that drive, then flatten/reload your current setup.

 

[David Cat]

I really don't know what the hell is happening. As you can see from the screenshot the numbers have fallen considerably, to normal levels.
I tried getting a screenshot without the external hard drive. Figures were almost the same as this. Then when I inserted my hard drive this is what I got. For some reason the system createdc two versions of the external hard drive, and that is what you see here.

I'm giving up with trying to find out what is going on. The system is working, and whilst it is, I'm leaving it alone. Thanks for your help.

 

[rado84]

@David Cat - if you are using Linux Mint (are you), it could be a Timeshift issue, with wrong settings applied.

Go to your Menu and open Timeshift and see if you can tell anything from that.

Cheers

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz

Or he probably never deleted the cache of apt which causes Mint to grow, just like Windows. I remember when I first discovered that fact, Mint had grown to 75GB (from 20) before I started manually delеting the package manager cache.
And if he used automatic installation, that created a swap file equal to the available physical RAM bc Mint developers still think we're all living in the "4GB RAM is huge" era.
Add to all that the possibility for a problem with Timeshift and voila - disk full.

 

[David Cat]

To everyone who has contributed replies to try and solve my problem, my thanks. The problem has now been solved.

BY LINUX.

Last night they issued an updated system file. All is now good. Everything works fine, even the OBS Studio I used. Now I can hear and see stuff progperly.

Again, my thanks to all who tried to solve the problem for me.