How does storage work on Linux, and should I reinstall it on a different drive?

[weary basin]

While trying to download peek and to use yt-dlp my command always says I am out of space, but I have more than 30Gb available. From how I understand responses online that feel very cryptic to read each "group" within the linux partition has its own little storage, and those have gotten full while there is still a bunch of free space that I have to give them? Is this correct, and if so, how do I do that?
Which brings me to my realization: if every application and whatever I download HAS to go to my small boot drive to work, shoul I have chosen one of my old multiple-TB HDDs as my linux drive, so I have enough space for it? (I have to allocate half of my 250GB SSD to Windows).
Here is the result of df -i: Filesystem Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on
tmpfs 2027853 1497 2026356 1% /run
/dev/sda6 4595712 1725906 2869806 38% /
tmpfs 2027853 9 2027844 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 2027853 10 2027843 1% /run/lock
/dev/sda5 0 0 0 - /boot/efi
tmpfs 405570 221 405349 1% /run/user/1000
/dev/sdd1 746149916 301639 745848277 1% /media/babushkaking/C4EE3591EE357CAC
/dev/sda1 47921724 785029 47136695 2% /media/babushkaking/0CFA2F81FA2F6664

[acoustic turtle]

I am really trying to understand what you mean here but I cannot

your drive is 40% used. how did you install yt-dlp?

[weary basin]

It wasn't out of space when I installed it

[acoustic turtle]

what?

[weary basin]

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
tmpfs 1,6G 2,2M 1,6G 1% /run
/dev/sda6 69G 66G 0 100% /
tmpfs 7,8G 336K 7,8G 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5,0M 24K 5,0M 1% /run/lock
/dev/sda5 487M 6,2M 480M 2% /boot/efi
tmpfs 1,6G 2,6M 1,6G 1% /run/user/1000
/dev/sdd1 2,8T 2,1T 710G 75% /media/babushkaking/C4EE3591EE357CAC
/dev/sda1 147G 103G 45G 70% /media/babushkaking/0CFA2F81FA2F6664

Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
tmpfs 1622284 2232 1620052 1% /run
/dev/sda6 71765104 69189096 0 100% /
tmpfs 8111412 336 8111076 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5120 24 5096 1% /run/lock
/dev/sda5 497684 6316 491368 2% /boot/efi
tmpfs 1622280 2660 1619620 1% /run/user/1000
/dev/sdd1 2930265084 2185819104 744445980 75% /media/babushkaking/C4EE3591EE357CAC
/dev/sda1 153599996 107152832 46447164 70% /media/babushkaking/0CFA2F81FA2F6664

Are these more helpful?

When using yt-dlp it says:
[youtube] Extracting URL: https://youtu.be/pUQ1TE4qnL8?si=RkFeqABoBKb85IOR
[youtube] pUQ1TE4qnL8: Downloading webpage
[youtube] pUQ1TE4qnL8: Downloading tv client config
[youtube] pUQ1TE4qnL8: Downloading tv player API JSON
[youtube] pUQ1TE4qnL8: Downloading web safari player API JSON
[youtube] pUQ1TE4qnL8: Downloading m3u8 information
WARNING: ffmpeg not found. The downloaded format may not be the best available. Installing ffmpeg is strongly recommended: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#dependencies
[info] pUQ1TE4qnL8: Downloading 1 format(s): 96
[download] Sleeping 4.00 seconds as required by the site...
[hlsnative] Downloading m3u8 manifest
[hlsnative] Total fragments: 47
[download] Destination: Double Trouble (Team Rocket) [pUQ1TE4qnL8].mp4
ERROR: Unable to download video: [Errno 28] No space left on device

[daring wedge]

can you send a screenshot of the filesystems tab in the gnome system monitor

[weary basin]

Like this?

Wow, sorry about the glitch. It keeps happening when I try Alt+PrtSc too. Is the important info visible?

[daring wedge]

it should look like this

[daring wedge]

what about a screenshot of the Disks app

[weary basin]

Any other disk you want to see?

[daring wedge]

you seem to have a lot of space in some external drives, how much of it is free

would you like it if your home directory would move to one of those HDDs?

[weary basin]

A lot of it is free. Multiple TBs. And if that helps with space going forwards then yeah! As long as it doesn't sacrifice too much speed

[daring wedge]

depends, you can benchmark your disks in this exact app too

[weary basin]

Ah, I see. It says I need to back up everything first though

[daring wedge]

you should, but only if you benchmark the write speed and dont trust the disk

[weary basin]

Read Rate 113,5MB/s
Access Time 12,28 msec
(This disk is very full with old junk though. I would format it before using it for home directory)

[daring wedge]

go through each one to decide whcih disk you want to put your home files on

[weary basin]

The other I can use had 146MB/s read, but slower access at 16,92msec. Any thoughts on what I should go for?

[daring wedge]

its really your choice

id prefer the 2nd one

[weary basin]

Okay, lets go with that one then

[daring wedge]

okay

now is it formatted

[weary basin]

No, should I do that from the disks app?

[daring wedge]

can you switch to that disk in the disks app and send a screenshot

[daring wedge]

it is indeed formatted as ntfs, make sure it doesnt have any important files in there

[weary basin]

It was recently copied in entirity to the 4TB one, so no worries

[daring wedge]

oh ok

[daring wedge]

ok so format it to GPT (GUID Partition Table), its too big for MBR

(MBR supports <2TB)

you do NOT need to overwrite existing data, it will likely take several hours if not days

[weary basin]

Hey, I suddenly got cold feet and am thinking I maybe should just buy a 2TB ssd and transfer it to that, I don't want to lose any performance.

[daring wedge]

this is 100% your choice.

[weary basin]

Can I keep this form open until then or should I make a new form with help moving home directory to new ssd" when I get it?

[daring wedge]

really depends on how much money you have & how are you planning to spend it. this is something we, random internet people, cant really help you with

[weary basin]

Yeah, I totally get that!

[daring wedge]

you can keep this thread open, it will likely fall off tho

[weary basin]

Okay, I'll try to keep it open and bump it when I have the new SSD. Anyhow, thank you so much for your help and attention

[daring wedge]

np, let us know when you get that new ssd

[civic rivet]

your 16 GB of swap is a total waste of space, unless you're hibernating the pc n have 16 GB RAM

[daring wedge]

let them keep it

[civic rivet]

i would , in proper steps, delete it, shrink the Windows partition by another 40 gigs or more if available, then stretch the extended partition over, and move n stretch the ext4 one within. then add a 1 or 2 gig swap FILE

[weary basin]

Hi, Stunner. I have 16GB of ram, and I hibernate it through windows atleast. The windows partition is basically full.

[civic rivet]

If you have run Timeshift, simply delete the snapshot(s).

[civic rivet]

hiberfile.sys on Windows has no effect on swap partition and vice versa

[weary basin]

The guide told me to snapshot like twice a day or so

[daring wedge]

you can enable hibernation in linux too if you want but I forgor how I did that, ask chatgpt ig

[civic rivet]

then move your timeshift snapshot preferences to a BIG ext4 partition elsewhere

[daring wedge]

you need to add some commandline flag to the kernel via /etc/default/grub iirc

[civic rivet]

there is no twice a day.

it's daily. n u probably set it to retain 2 former ones

anyway move them as i just wrote

that's what's choking your free space all to hell

[weary basin]

I will try when I get back to my PC, thank you. But why isn't the system using any of the 47GB available to it?

Or is that 47gb just a lie, empty space filled up with snapshots and such?

[civic rivet]

u mean the third line here?

cuz if u look at DISKS, sda1 is your Windows NTFS partition. it's not linux compatible really

Timeshift demands ext4 or btrfs partitions

so either make a FRESH partition of exactly one of those two formats strictly for timeshift to save onto

on a disk that has the space

or delete the swap, shrink windows, and resize the rest as mentioned

*note: deleting swap must FIRST comment it out in fstab or else boot fail

[weary basin]

Okay, thank you. I will try the fresh partition on big drive trick. That should hopefully let me atleast install a few necessary things while I wait for the new ssd.

[weary basin]

I didn't do the trick since my schedule got full. I installed a 2tb ssd though. My linux has gone bonkers though. I can't open any apps and it can't connect to the internet, so I will probably have to do this from Windows

When I tried to open discord it removed discord lol

So to recap for anyone finding this: I want to move my linux root from its current drive to a new, empty ssd.

[daring wedge]

atp
write down all the packages you need, backup everything in /etc/ and other places you might want to keep (/opt/, /usr/local/, /root/, etc.), copy your entire home folder into a new partition at the end of your new ssd, and clean reinstall linux on the start of that ssd. then recover everything you backed up and you should be good to go

[civic rivet]

i'd just reinstall linux to the new 2 TB ssd

no need for separate home and root complications

then import your data

[daring wedge]

yes need

it makes it much easier to reinstall linux later on without backing up your data again, extracting it, etc. you just keep the partition as it is

[weary basin]

Sorry for the late response. I Appreciate your detailed solution, Johnny, but I'm so defeated I think I will go for the "just try again from the start" soltuion, even though installing Wine wasa a nightmare. Thank you both, though!

[daring wedge]

do you want to keep any of your current data

[weary basin]

What should I do to the SSD before I reinstall linux?

[daring wedge]

id recommend backing up at least your home directory

[daring wedge]

#1424345700065480725 message

[weary basin]

T hank you!

[daring wedge]

after you reinstall linux, you can also optionally copy all your files into the root partition and get rid of the separate home partition, tho i wouldn't recommend you do that

[weary basin]

I'm fearful that I might have done more harm than good to my linux system since switching tot it

Which is why I think a new start is good

I will back up my home directory though, I have more than enogh space for thgat

So I should open the new disk and format it to Ext4 with gparted, yeah?

[daring wedge]

when copying important data, use either rsync -aHAX '/path/to/source/' '/path/to/dest/', or tar --acls --selinux --xattrs -cf '/path/to/data.tar' '/path/to/data/' if you want it all to fit inside a single file. rsync have to be ran with sudo, otherwise not all file metadata will be backed up. for tar, only extracting needs to be done with sudo.

if you want to compress the backed up data too:

1. you have to use tar.
2. you can do it right at the start by adding one of the following before -cf:
   a. -z for gzip, decent compression and decently fast. most common
   b. -j to use bzip2, just another compression format
   c. -J for xz (notice the capital J)
   d. --zstd for zstd; if you want faster compression, use -I'zstd -T4' - replace 4 with however many cpu cores you have; for maximum compression, use -I'zstd -19'; you can combine both into -I'zstd -T4 -19'

for restoring:
rsync - the files are just as they were before, no need to do anything
tar - 'sudo tar -C'<prefix to restoration point>' -xf /path/to/data.tar(.gz)(.zst)(etc.)'

[daring wedge]

@civic rivet can I send that in your notes thread

[civic rivet]

no 😛

just use grsync. simple things for simple people

or refer people to the Distrotube YT video on moving home folder to alternate disk

[daring wedge]

not viable for storing the data for any time between backing up and restoring

[civic rivet]

to be absolutely honest, they can simply reinstall. Choose the manual setup if they want to do separate home partition.. then just later drag and drog their personal files

@weary basin the above picture is a sample.

you can either use the previous EFI partition on any drive that remains in the system from before.

[daring wedge]

first they need to move their data to a new partition

[civic rivet]

or make a dedicated one as shown above

[civic rivet]

they can do that later via the DT vid

or forget the DT vid, and just drag n drop the personal files

then delete all the old shyte off the old drive

[civic rivet]

New 2 TB drive ^^

since it's so big, DON'TTTT BE FUCKING CHEAP, or stupid - give ROOT at least 400 GiB !!!!!

so u dont run out of room for freakin' programs or FATPAK software

the other three partitions as shown. (swap is also optional as a partition, since Mint auto-installs a swap file if u omit swap partition)

[daring wedge]

I like having a swap partition to avoid mixing it with normal files

and for having it have a fixed size

[civic rivet]

it's a fixed, pre-allocated size as a file in Linux anyway, unlike in Windows

[daring wedge]

also, always prefer it to be at the end of your disk because then if you wanna add/remove swap space you just need to move the end of the partition before it, which is much less risky than moving the start of it and takes much less time as you dont have to move the entire filesystem. the swap partition itself can be resized however you want from both directions, just turn off swap while youre resizing it or do it from a live environment (gparted live recommended)

[civic rivet]

I agree. that's why I put my nice green chocolate bar diagram

(stuff at the far right means end of drive's storage area)

[civic rivet]

note this picture attached @weary basin .

The Mint Manual installer (the "something else" option) uses metric megs in that chart. Just know that.

so to have a nice even rounded size like 400 binary Gigs (aka Gibibytes) for your main linux root (the one that mounts to / ), then convert the number as formula here:

[daring wedge]

1,073,741,824 bytes to be exact

you can use a calculator lol

[civic rivet]

just easier to do 400 GiB x 1074

[daring wedge]

btw GiB is Gibibyte (2³⁰) and GB is Gigabyte (10⁹)

[civic rivet]

i know that. Not trying to confuse King.

[daring wedge]

then this statement is misleading

[civic rivet]

no. look exactly at the google result

[daring wedge]

400GiB is already multiplied by the ~1.074

[civic rivet]

you're going from a big weight BINARY prefix.. to a smaller weight METRIC prefix

[daring wedge]

anyways yeah always align to GiB, not GB

[civic rivet]

google is correct, 100%

and like i said, the manual install chart uses metric megs

[weary basin]

Thanks for all the help so far guys. Well, new road block. UEFI BIOS won't let me boot from the USB because it thinks it is in safe mode, bur I have put it on OTHER OS, CUSTOM, and deleted the secure boot keys. It won't let me select the USB as the place to boot from and it won't let me launch EFI shell from USB drives

I am genuinely really sorry about how much hassle this has been, this is really frustrating.

[weary basin]

I tried again and again and again, suddenly it worked. Installing now.

Do I need to manual install if I am simply installing to an empty drive? Is there a downside to doing a basic installation?

[weary basin]

So based on what I am reading online I really need to disconnect every other drive on my computer before installing linux mint, then just run a normal install.

[civic rivet]

sorry, what are you doing?

[civic rivet]

are you trying to do a simple clean, absolutely fresh install to this 'new' 2 TB SSD?

if so, then yes, physically disconnect other storage, just leave the new 2 TB in, and 'erase n install'

then make sure to put it (uefi name: ubuntu ) to top of bootlist

ensure u boot the USB stick in UEFI mode if on a machine made in last 9 years

so you end up with a UEFI-run final install.

https://youtu.be/CuonyS3xdwg?t=303 <<5:03 ThioJoe Ventoy Secure Boot enroll steps

if using ventoy, and secure boot is getting in the way, follow vid precisely from timecue