Encountered 0 bytes disk space on / with 11.2GB available

[heavy flame]

If you look at the attached image you will see the low disk space error I encounter on startup which consequentially prevents a bunch of programs from launching. Strangely it appears that the root file system still has 11.2GB available, so I can't really understand why the this is occurring.

I have also attached an image of the partitions on the disk I am using. It is a dual boot with Windows. The key partitions are annotated in red and I note that I moved the original /home folder to be mounted on partition 6 instead of the system partition (sda5).

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you 🙂

Here's a screenshot of sdb6 too which shows there's 6.8GB remaining.

[lean breach]

So, for my clarification, any- and everything- to do with Linux resides strictly on the 1 TB APS SL3N drive, right?

sdb in this case

I have a feeling you moved your home folder to a new home partition incorrectly.

open a file manager, to the home folder, check the status bar at the very bottom what it reports as free space. (turn on status bar in view options if not shown)

[heavy flame]

It may be unrelated but per your question I looked again and I found that I may have messed something up on upgrading. It looks like sda1 is working as EFI and not sdb3 as it should be.

This is what the home folder reports

[lean breach]

it's just really full. Delete some stuff. Use Bleachbit

[heavy flame]

Ah I imagined it would say 6.8GB in the initial error instead of 0 bytes, I guess that's where my confusion lies.

[lean breach]

disks app shows raw disk sizes (and it's in Metric prefixes) filesystem uses up some.

lsblk -o NAME,TYPE,MODEL,SIZE,FSSIZE,FSTYPE,OWNER,MOUNTPOINT

[heavy flame]

That makes sense. On a semi related note I have since read that setting up a separate system/home partition is not best practice and messy in the long run. Should I start from scratch and reinstall mint with one big partition for everything?

This is the page I read https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.com/p/faq-2.html?m=1#ID2

[lean breach]

it's not bad practice to have separate home, but it's good to do that from the very beginning, or else have it all on one linux partition.

u also dont need 33 GB of swap 💀

unless u have 32 GB of ram and you Always Hibernate instead of suspend or Shutdown

[rough merlin]

something has gone wrong, as the above screenshot says TOTAL /home space is 30 GB, and you say that the mounted /home partition is 258 GB. something's not adding up

[heavy flame]

Yep that's what's confused me. I think Stunner is right in saying something was done incorrectly when moving home partition.

[rough merlin]

Propably

[lean breach]

u happened to likely incorrectly LABEL the 30 GB pt'n as "home" even though it's the linux root partition and is mounted in /

from what i see in the 1st pic at very top here

[heavy flame]

Right, I guess i started out with it with that label and that's how I've assembled this mess.

[lean breach]

set labels to each partition to a sensible and proper name using Disks app > gear: edit filesystem no spaces in names

ensure in /etc/fstab file that things are identified by UUID= and not by label or dev names

[heavy flame]

If most things install to root I'm gonna need to increase the size of sdb5 significantly to account for this, right?

I am thinking about just merging the two partitions (sdb5 & sdb6). As well as reevaluating the size of my swap per your comment

Please do let me know if this is too far off the original question and if I should start a new thread more focused on fixing the partition mess.

[rough merlin]

Maybe could be worth a reinstall. The more partitions you create, the more clutter it creates.

BTW, it's ok to have /boot/efi on the same drive as windows is (unless you plan on removing the windows drive)

[heavy flame]

Oh I don't intend to remove it, I'm just not sure why I ended up with that one and not sdb3. If I reinstall I guess I can make sure that's all set up right.

[lean breach]

you'll get into more mess trying to remove the bootloader from the SSD, just leave it.

for it to have been put properly onto sdb3 in this case would mean explicitly telling it to using the manual install mode.

[heavy flame]

Yeah I'll take it step by step through manual mode, try and do it better this time round!

I'll backup my home folder so I can get all my settings back again and go ahead with reinstall

Thanks for your time guys, I really appreciate it

[lean breach]

you'll need to purge the ubuntu folder, (and nothing else) from EFI pt'n of SSD - from live environment

[heavy flame]

Oh I'll be leaving it alone haha

[rough merlin]

eh it's fairly simple, and it won't leave you with a orphan mint entry. btw you may want to try out the glorious BTRFS

[heavy flame]

Oooh full system snapshots, very interesting!

Assuming you use it yourself, lot, do you use both BTRFS snapshots & timeshift (for backup to another drive)?

[rough merlin]

With btrfs, you can only backup to the main partition, not an external drive. You could possibly create a rsync snapshot to an external drive, but idk if it's needed.

But remember that btrfs snapshots don't take up any space - only after you modify your filesystem, which is minor.

[lean breach]

#1050504228029874206 message

[heavy flame]

The timeshifts to another drive would just be for any kind of drive failure. Otherwise yeah the system snapshots sound fantastic, think I'll work witn both.

Perfect, thank you stunner

[rough merlin]

you can even go as far as make btrfs / for snapshots and ext4 /home. idk if it has any real advantages but I use that as someone suggested earlier, works fine.

[heavy flame]

I went ahead and set things up according to this, seems to be working. I'm a bit confused however, even after reading a few things, when it comes to much larger folders/files e.g. games.

With the timeshift snapshots on the same drive won't that mean that disk space is quickly eaten up by both the original file data and the data of the file stored in timeshift?

In a use case with large files such as games I would have thought to backup to a secondary drive where space is less valuable. (This is not a critique, just explaining how I am understanding things)

[lean breach]

u can exclude games, browser profiles and junk caches in your home folder

[lean breach]

would be satisfying to see a pic of your Disks app showing your redone 1 TB disk now.

[rough merlin]

I think you're overthinking this. The snapshots will only grow when you add/modify stuff (so like if you install new games), meaning your current games don't take up any snapshot space. I'm not sure but I believe steam by default installs games only in your home directory, and by default I think it's disabled from snapshotting.

[heavy flame]

here's what i have now, the "Main Storage" is not for use with linux so just EPS and FIlesystem are relevant. I also set up a subvolume for games. If I've understood everything correctly my concerns about backing up games, which can easily be redownloaded, should be alleviated as timeshift will snapshot @ and @home only and not the games subvolume.

In the process of testing however, I managed to mess up the bootloader so now I need to work out how to retroactively put windows into grub

[lean breach]

run boot repair app from live session desktop

sdb3 won't be used

[heavy flame]

Yup that's what I am gonna try cheers

[heavy flame]

I've made it worse, I now have 3 grubs which show Ubuntu as the OS name instead of mint (although it still launches). Windows still doesn't show. Windows start up repair also fails.

Had thought I'd be able to get by with the move across to linux relying on reading up on things and googling a lot but it seems it's well over my head.

(not mint or linux's fault mind you)

[lean breach]

yeah I have a feeling u wiped out ur EFI partition.

on ur 240 GB disk

that was the one with Windows efi stuff

to fix it, you unplug all the other internal drives, get a copy of Windows installer ISO, put it on ventoy-prepped USB stick, boot it up, then follow CyberCPU Tech's YT vid on Broken UEFI

after u fix the Windows one, put your other drives back into circuit.

if Linux doesnt wanna boot after, then u DISCONNECT the Windows drive (presumably the 240 Gig one) run boot repair from live USB Mint, and have it reinstall grub to sdb(3)

then after that u set up in the BIOS which is ur preferred OS (DISK) and put that at top.

U can switch to OS each time at bootup, by striking the Boot Menu Key. (search that term for your brand pc if u dont know it)

[rough merlin]

Ubuntu being the bootloader name is good

[lean breach]

yeah it's Mint, anyway

fact.

[heavy flame]

This all worked. Thank you so much 😭

I'm absolutely fine using the boot menu to select which to run instead of grub

[lean breach]

Ayyyyyy 😄

https://tenor.com/view/hey-cool-gif-13787854