Zero in Root filesystem?

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cecilieaux
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Zero in Root filesystem?

Post by cecilieaux »

For two days I keep getting messages that there is 0 space in the "root filesystem." I don't understand this. I have root in a partition separate from /home, but Gparted shows there is still unused space. (see graphic)
Screenshot from 2023-03-27 12-24-36.png
Not sure what the problem is nor how to fix it.

Thanks in advance for your answers.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Sep 27, 2023 10:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Zero in Root filesystem?

Post by Pjotr »

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Moem
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Re: Zero in Root filesystem?

Post by Moem »

cecilieaux wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2023 12:31 pm For two days I keep getting messages that there is 0 space in the "root filesystem." I don't understand this. I have root in a partition separate from /home, but Gparted shows there is still unused space.
GParted clearly shows it as quite full. Are you maybe saving your Timeshift snapshots in your root partition?
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cecilieaux
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Re: Zero in Root filesystem?

Post by cecilieaux »

Moem wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2023 12:51 pm GParted clearly shows it as quite full. Are you maybe saving your Timeshift snapshots in your root partition?
I think so. Will check. I will shift that to the /home partition. Thanks.
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cecilieaux
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Re: Zero in Root filesystem?

Post by cecilieaux »

Moem wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2023 12:51 pm
GParted clearly shows it as quite full. Are you maybe saving your Timeshift snapshots in your root partition?
OK. Shifting Timeshift to the data partition has done nothing.

How much free space should a root partition ideally have?
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Re: Zero in Root filesystem?

Post by Moem »

Did you also remove the snapshots in / ?
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Re: Zero in Root filesystem?

Post by cecilieaux »

Moem wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2023 3:36 pm Did you also remove the snapshots in / ?
Yes. I also deleted several programs.

The system still warns me that there is "low" space in the root partition (about 6.5 GB out of 93.1 GB).

Sigh! I will try some of the other suggestions.
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Re: Zero in Root filesystem?

Post by mikeflan »

How much free space should a root partition ideally have?
For me 40% free is good. You can certainly get by with only 20% free. And yes, 10% free would be OK assuming it doesn't drop below that, but 40% is better to give plenty of room for unexpected usage.
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Re: Zero in Root filesystem?

Post by Petermint »

A clean booted system uses about 20 GB without the Timeshift snapshots. When you run some applications, you easily use another 20 GB. I have set up machines with 30 GB, 40 GB, and 50 GB root partitions. 30 and 40 always failed. 50 GB rarely produced problems and only on a heavily loaded desktop. A machine with a 60 GB SSD dedicated to boot and root has never run out of space despite heavily loading it.

You might get different results with something like video editing a 100 GB file with the editor using a copy in /tmp.
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Re: Zero in Root filesystem?

Post by Moem »

cecilieaux wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2023 7:34 pm The system still warns me that there is "low" space in the root partition (about 6.5 GB out of 93.1 GB).
Maybe you should look what's in there? Disk Usage Analyzer might help.
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Re: Zero in Root filesystem?

Post by cecilieaux »

Moem wrote: Tue Mar 28, 2023 1:30 am Maybe you should look what's in there? Disk Usage Analyzer might help.
DUA shows

-- 17.5GB in /usr
-- 9 GB in /usr/lib
-- dire with more than a GB are /ur/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu,
/ur/lib/modules, /ur/lib/i386_linux-gnu, and /ur/lib/firmware

The biggest recognizable items are wine in the first one and and four kernel modules of about 500MB each (3 were installed today with an update, despite my asking to get rid of old modules)

-- 7.GB in /usr/share

-- 9.1 GB in /var
-- 7.1 GB in /var/lib

The rest of the directories have quite a bit less than a GB each.

So what now? Uninstall WINE is the only thing I can think of. I don't think I actually use WINE for anything.
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Re: Zero in Root filesystem?

Post by Petermint »

My machine has heaps of extras but not wine. /usr is 14 GB. /usr/lib is 9.8 GB and /usr/share is next at 2.2.

/var is 2.3 GB with /var/lib the biggest at 0.9 GB. /var/cache/apt is 0.75 GB. Command sudo apt clean reduced it to 0.05 GB.

If you are not using wine, delete it. Why was it installed? Did you use it in the past? Is there a program you start than is inside wine?

I think the automatic delete of old kernels is after a week. You can take them out manually after you run Timeshift.
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