# Help! Partition full

**URL:** <https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/help-partition-full/7295>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [July 23, 2024, 10:06pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/help-partition-full/7295 "2024-07-23T22:06:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 17\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dusty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@Dusty](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/Dusty)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 10:06pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/help-partition-full/7295/1 "2024-07-23T22:06:31Z")

</div>

OK so for some reason chromium wouldn’t launch. I thought ah, reboot. But now I can’t get back to a GUI. From all I can figure out loging in, the 32gb partition I set for / is out of space.

What are my options here?

I do have a dual boot system. I have not yet updated to the latest LTS either.

If I had known in any way I was running out of space this could have been prevented. I have never ran into this issue before.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![fossfreedom](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/fossfreedom/32/1405_2.png) [@fossfreedom](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/fossfreedom)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 10:42pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/help-partition-full/7295/2 "2024-07-23T22:42:07Z")

</div>

32Gb is way too small. Our minimal recommendation is 40Gb. That is very much on the small size.

Basically you need to switch to a TTY (ctrl + alt + f2), login and do lots of cleanup. Start with a

```
sudo apt autoremove

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dusty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@Dusty](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/Dusty)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2024, 1:36am UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/help-partition-full/7295/3 "2024-07-24T01:36:32Z")

</div>

Thanks, I’ll go run that now.

I didn’t know the system partition would get this big. I set this up dual boot years ago and have just been upgrading with the same partition setup.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dusty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@Dusty](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/Dusty)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2024, 2:09am UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/help-partition-full/7295/4 "2024-07-24T02:09:55Z")

</div>

OK that won’t run. It returns

Write error - write (28: No space left on device  
The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened

Any other ideas?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jlb](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/jlb/32/4919_2.png) [@jlb](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/jlb)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2024, 5:34am UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/help-partition-full/7295/5 "2024-07-24T05:34:07Z")

</div>

Hi @Dusty!

I would try to free up space by going through a live session.  
If you don’t have a spare boot key, you can flash one from Windows with [Balena Etcher](https://etcher.balena.io/#download-etcher).

I only used [Zorin 17](https://zorin.com/os/download/17/core/) for explanation’s sake because I know this distribution fairly well and its Ubuntu 22.04 live session is more convenient than the new Ubuntu 24.04 mode.  
Any other distro could do, provided it ships “Disks” (like UB).

Launch this app and mount the partition on which you’ve installed Ubuntu Budgie (“Play” button). Then click on the link to access its various directories:

 ![ls](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/uploads/ubuntubudgie/original/2X/b/b4621061c1e13ac3694f51b72081afc81a8d06ae.png)

There are certainly a few large personal files (videos, music, etc.) it should be possible to transfer to a USB stick to free up enough space for your system to breathe.

Once UB is up and running again, open the terminal and enter this line (copy-paste). It will clear the APT cache and delete logs older than 7 days, as well as thumbnails. It’s amazing how much space this can take up!

```auto
sudo apt clean && sudo journalctl --vacuum-time=7d && sudo rm -rf ~/.cache/thumbnails/* 

```

Then you can enter this line to complete the cleanup:

```auto
sudo apt autoremove --purge -y && sudo apt autoclean -y

```

But you’ll still have to put your large files somewhere else, on a space taken from the Windows part, for example, or on external storage… or reinstall UB and resize its space after saving important files still from a live session.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dusty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@Dusty](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/Dusty)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2024, 7:56pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/help-partition-full/7295/6 "2024-07-24T19:56:43Z")

</div>

I do have a live usb somewhere, just have to find it. I thought about making a new one of the lastest LTS since I have not upgraded yet, and just seeing if I could resize the partition and do a fresh install on it.

Best I recall I set up a boot partition, a swap partition, a system partition and then another partition for home and my user files. My work files, I save in the windows partition so that I have 2 ways to access them and a remaining 1 way to access them if something like this happens.

I have fumbled around in TTY as my gears are really rusty, I mean really rusty. All I can really seem to figure out is that /VAR is I think 21gb… with /VAR/LIB being 18gb of it. And /USR is nearly 7gb.

I went back and ran df -h to see how good my memory is.

/boot/efi is on /dev/sda1 and is 33% used  
/ is on /dev/sda6 and is 100% used  
/home is on .dev.sda7 and is 13% used

Then I also have four listings for tmpfs which I dont remember that well but I think are virtual allocations to store or send stuff to memory while running? I got cobb webbs up there.

/run is 1.6gb and 6% used  
/run/lock is 5mb and 1% used  
/run/user/1000 is 1.6g and 1% used  
/dev/shm is 7.8gb and 0% used

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jlb](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/jlb/32/4919_2.png) [@jlb](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/jlb)\
**Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 4:33am UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/help-partition-full/7295/7 "2024-07-25T04:33:02Z")

</div>

> [@Dusty](#):
>
> / is on /dev/sda6 and is 100% used  
> /home is on .dev.sda7 and is 13% used

Ok, the problem is not on /home even though there may be files to move on it…

By the way, did you install Timeshift?  
It reminds me that the same misadventure happened to me on a distribution I used from time to time for testing: among these tests, I had just forgotten that I had installed and activated Timeshift and the snapshots were taking up all the space…  
I deleted them from a live session and got my hands back on the system.

If not, check the /var/log directory to see if it wouldn’t be enough to delete the “syslog.x.gz” archives to recover the necessary space to restart your system.

You can also manually remove the oldest kernel version from the live session.

Nevertheless, the wisest thing would be to take the opportunity to install UB 24.04 on a larger partition.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dusty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@Dusty](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/Dusty)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2024, 12:41am UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/help-partition-full/7295/8 "2024-09-16T00:41:12Z")

</div>

I don’t even remember what all I tried cleaning up from the system from terminal.

I never did get back to a GUI after all that. But then today while I was out mowing, my son was playing Roblox in windows on the same device. I think he unplugged and ran the battery out. My wife had no idea what was wrong. I think she plugged it up and tried to start it, then gave up. When I came in and was told something happened I figured well he killed the battery or overheated it. When I woke it I was on my budgie login screen.

Logged in no problem. Now my system partition has 1.7gb of free space.

I was thinking about resizing the partitions, but do think I need to go ahead and start fresh with a new install of 24.04. I am just dreading it because I’ve made more customizations over the years than I can remember, and don’t look forward to redoing all that.

I need to spend a while on here going through my posts to see if I can make a list of what all I have done and how I will apply it to 24.04.

I might have a few files I should move temporarily also. I honestly don’t store much at all on the linux partitions as far as personal files. I do that on purpose in case something goes wrong. I can just choose windows at boot and access all my files pretty much. I have space allocated I’m never going to use I’m realizing.

What is the recommended partitioning for 24.04 for swap, filesystem and home. The way it is now I have 176gb for those 3 I can resize however.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jlb](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/jlb/32/4919_2.png) [@jlb](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/jlb)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2024, 4:39am UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/help-partition-full/7295/9 "2024-09-16T04:39:57Z")

</div>

Too bad we’re not sure how you managed it, but I’m glad you’re back in UB.

> [@Dusty](#):
>
> I can just choose windows at boot and access all my files pretty much.

You can also simply access and even edit files that are stored in the Windows partition from UB.

What are your computer’s characteristics (processor and memory)?

```auto
cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep 'model name' | uniq && free -h

```

Maybe there’s no need for swap.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dusty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@Dusty](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/Dusty)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2024, 5:45pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/help-partition-full/7295/10 "2024-09-21T17:45:32Z")

</div>

Interestingly… it just filled right back up after being on a while. Really wish I could remember the last things I cleared out. I want to say it was related to firefox so I went looking that direction. Drilled down a little farther than /VAR/LIB and found that /VAR/LIB/SNAPD seems to be the culprit.

I’m not up on the snaps thing. Have to guess they auto-update or something?

Also, what the crap is KF6-CORE22\_29 ? \_30? \_36?  
Something to do with KDE?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dusty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@Dusty](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/Dusty)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2024, 5:46pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/help-partition-full/7295/11 "2024-09-21T17:46:15Z")

</div>

Intel Pentium CPU 4417U @ 2.30 Ghz

16GB ram

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![fossfreedom](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/fossfreedom/32/1405_2.png) [@fossfreedom](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/fossfreedom)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2024, 6:31pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/help-partition-full/7295/12 "2024-09-21T18:31:47Z")

</div>

> [@Dusty](#):
>
> KF6-CORE22\_29

Thats a KDE related snap.

Nowadays 18GB is really small, especially if you are installing lots of additional apps beyond the default.

Remember every snap will store up to 3 copies to allow to rollback a snap update.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dusty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@Dusty](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/Dusty)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2024, 10:32pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/help-partition-full/7295/13 "2024-09-21T22:32:35Z")

</div>

Thanks, so I think maybe that is KDE framework, meaning at some point I tried a snap that needed the KDE stuff?

Learning a little before I move forward is good.

I think the way I am partitioned is 16GB swap, 32GB system, 128GB home.

I think I set it up that way several years and versions ago. That has to be changed now. That’s OK though because I never really needed the 128GB home. Never use it much to be honest.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jlb](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/jlb/32/4919_2.png) [@jlb](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/jlb)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2024, 3:51pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/help-partition-full/7295/14 "2024-09-22T15:51:49Z")

</div>

> [@Dusty](#):
>
> Intel Pentium CPU 4417U @ 2.30 Ghz
> 
> 16GB ram

No need to create a swap partition, let the installer decide what’s best for your system.  
On my computer, which also has 16GB of RAM, it has set aside 4GB for a swap file, which is hardly ever used.

After installation, you’ll can check this by entering this line:

```auto
cat /proc/swaps

```

or this command:

```auto
free

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dusty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@Dusty](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/Dusty)\
**Post date:** [September 23, 2024, 12:22am UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/help-partition-full/7295/15 "2024-09-23T00:22:58Z")

</div>

I’ll share my funny story in hopes it helps someone else like me that hasn’t tinkered like this in too long or hasn’t done it at all.

I went ahead and made my 24.04 live usb with Rufus. It had been long enough that I was fuzzy and I sat there a bit before because I couldn’t remember if you could change the name in the device label further into the process. In my case I reused an old usb with an old OS I didn’t want anymore. The naming is farter in past first steps which I had forgotten.

Next, I booted the live and just opened disks to try to resize the partitions. So I made /home smaller because I don’t store much there. Then the unallocated space was to the right of home and I couldn’t expand / to that space and didn’t see a way to move my /home over to put the unallocated space to the right of / where I could expand to it.

So I used Gparted like I had in the past. But when I went to move /home over in order to shift the unallocated space before it, I couldn’t find any way to do so. There was no arrow to move the start of /home left. All I could do was expand into the unallocated space. I couldn’t type it in manually either.

I got rather mad about this and mad at myself too because I couldn’t figure out why. After fumbling around for a while I realized that this was because these partitions were actually mounted athough I had done nothing to mount them. Once I unmounted, I was able to see the arrow at the beginning of /home to actually move it. So I entered to move it, and expand / into the allocated space.

Then I sat there a few minutes like why is nothing happening? Wait is it done already? So I went to close Gparted because the new allocations were visible in the graphical representation of the drive. A message popped up saying there were 2 pending actions. So I didn’t close. I sat there a minute or two and thought well surely they didn’t do away with the progress indicators right? I tried clicking on the actions at the bottom and finally saw an apply option. So I clicked apply and both finished up no problem.

I now have / resized to 64gb and home resized to 96gb. All is good.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dusty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@Dusty](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/Dusty)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2024, 12:54am UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/help-partition-full/7295/16 "2024-09-24T00:54:24Z")

</div>

I’m still tooling around before installing 24.04 just trying to see what I find and refresh myself clacking around in terminal to see where my inadequate storage got ate up. There are some directories 4 and 6 GB. But this is the only one I feel like is balooned. Can anyone tell what I installed that needed KDE?

dusty:/var/lib/snapd/snaps$ du -a -h --max-depth=1 | sort -hr  
17G .  
2.1G ./kf6-core22\_36.snap  
2.0G ./kf6-core22\_30.snap  
516M ./gimp\_436.snap  
516M ./gimp\_428.snap  
506M ./gnome-42-2204\_176.snap  
505M ./gnome-42-2204\_172.snap  
451M ./kf5-5-108-qt-5-15-10-core22\_5.snap  
449M ./kf5-5-105-qt-5-15-9-core22\_9.snap  
449M ./kf5-5-105-qt-5-15-9-core22\_11.snap  
449M ./kf5-5-104-qt-5-15-8-core22\_9.snap  
449M ./kf5-5-104-qt-5-15-8-core22\_7.snap  
444M ./kf5-5-113-qt-5-15-11-core22\_1.snap  
439M ./kf5-5-110-qt-5-15-11-core22\_3.snap  
438M ./kde-frameworks-5-98-qt-5-15-6-core20\_9.snap  
437M ./kde-frameworks-5-96-qt-5-15-5-core20\_7.snap  
407M ./gnome-46-2404\_48.snap  
403M ./gnome-46-2404\_42.snap  
350M ./gnome-3-38-2004\_143.snap  
350M ./gnome-3-38-2004\_140.snap  
324M ./kde-frameworks-5-qt-5-15-core20\_14.snap  
291M ./kde-frameworks-5-qt-5-14-core18\_4.snap  
290M ./kde-frameworks-5-qt-5-14-core18\_3.snap  
290M ./kde-frameworks-5-core18\_35.snap  
272M ./firefox\_4955.snap  
268M ./firefox\_4539.snap  
261M ./kde-frameworks-5-core18\_32.snap  
240M ./wps-office\_1.snap  
225M ./mesa-2404\_44.snap  
212M ./mesa-2404\_143.snap  
168M ./chromium\_2950.snap  
165M ./gnome-3-28-1804\_198.snap  
165M ./gnome-3-28-1804\_194.snap  
164M ./chromium\_2897.snap  
158M ./opera\_329.snap  
154M ./opera\_320.snap  
105M ./core\_17200.snap  
104M ./core\_16928.snap  
92M ./gtk-common-themes\_1535.snap  
82M ./gtk-common-themes\_1534.snap  
75M ./core22\_1621.snap  
75M ./core22\_1612.snap  
68M ./cups\_1058.snap  
67M ./cups\_1052.snap  
67M ./core24\_490.snap  
67M ./core24\_423.snap  
66M ./okular\_156.snap  
66M ./okular\_155.snap  
64M ./core20\_2379.snap  
64M ./core20\_2318.snap  
56M ./core18\_2829.snap  
56M ./core18\_2823.snap  
28M ./ubuntu-budgie-welcome\_518.snap  
28M ./ubuntu-budgie-welcome\_516.snap  
14M ./chromium-ffmpeg\_55.snap  
5.3M ./eog\_728.snap  
5.3M ./eog\_726.snap  
4.1M ./chromium-ffmpeg\_58.snap  
140K ./gtk2-common-themes\_13.snap  
4.0K ./partial  
4.0K ./bare\_5.snap

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jlb](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/jlb/32/4919_2.png) [@jlb](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/jlb)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2024, 6:49am UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/help-partition-full/7295/17 "2024-09-24T06:49:03Z")

</div>

> [@Dusty](#):
>
> Can anyone tell what I installed that needed KDE?

I don’t see it, @Dusty : even after installing ‘kshisen’, I don’t have that many ‘kde’ files…  
But I think you should at least clean up the snaps.

Try this maintenance routine I use regularly, which also does this.  
Enter this line, copy and paste the code and save the file:

```auto
sudo gedit /usr/local/bin/maintenance-routine.sh

```

```auto
#!/bin/bash
# Run periodically to keep your system lean and up to date

# Clears the APT cache, deletes archived logs (older than seven days) and thumbnails.
#
sudo apt clean && sudo journalctl --vacuum-time=7d && sudo rm -rf ~/.cache/thumbnails/*

# Removes any remaining configuration.
#
sudo apt purge ~c -y

# After updating the list of packages and the system, remove any packages that are no longer required.
#
sudo apt update -y && sudo apt upgrade -y && sudo apt dist-upgrade -y && sudo apt autoremove --purge -y && sudo apt autoclean -y

# Removes old versions of snaps and flatpaks.
#
set -eu
snap list --all | awk ‘/disabled/{print $1, $3}’ |
    while read -r snapname revision; do
        sudo snap remove ‘$snapname’ --revision="$revision’
    done
    
flatpak uninstall --unused  

read -p ‘<Enter> to exit’

```

Make it executable:

```auto
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/maintenance-routine.sh

```

Finally, run the script:

```auto
maintenance-routine.sh

```

If this works for you, edit ‘~/.bashrc’:

```auto
gedit .bashrc

```

Then add `alias mr='maintenance-routine.sh'` to the end of file and save.

A little ‘mr’ from time to time will keep your system lean and mean.

To delete it:

```auto
sudo rm /usr/local/bin/maintenance-routine.sh

```