[SOLVED] Partition Full

[Daveyboy]

[size=1em]My desktop machine has been slowing down lately and having just checked  \ partition. where LL 2.2 is installed and find that it using 99% of a 20Gb partition.[/size]

[size=1em]I have only a moderate amount of software installed i.e. Thunderbird, Chrome, LibreOffice, Gimp, Inkscape, Skype & VLC etc. so something must be astray as I have a similar setup on my laptop and that shows only 4Gb used. In each case the home directory is on a separate partition.[/size]

[size=1em]I have no idea how to check/list the content of the partitions on each machine in order to try and work out what is hogging the space on the desktop. Any help would be greatly appreciated [/size]

[torreydale]

To Daveyboy,

I know what you mean.

First don't forget about Lite Tweaks.  Menu->System->Lite Tweaks.  You might have things in Trash, Package Cache, or Browser cache taking up space.

Secondly, try installing baobab (Gnome Disk Usage Analyzer).  Menu->System->Install/Remove Software and do a search for "baobab".  It's a good tool for showing you where your storage hog is.

Lastly, if you have an app that creates system restore points, some (like Timeshift) install the restore point on the root partition.  I used Timeshift for the first time last night, and it filled up my 20GB root partition.  I had to kill the process, uninstall Timeshift, and remove the /Timeshift folder from the root partition.  After rebooting, I was back to just 7.6GB of use on my root partition.

Cheers.

[Daveyboy]

Torrydale - many thanks for the tip regarding baobab, having installed this software it appears to have identified a large part of the problem straight away.

The /var/tmp directory contains 617 files (15.8Gb) that are all related in some way to the installed printer, a Canon MG5650, see screenshot.

HOWEVER, try as I might, the system will not allow me to delete any of these files, returning the message  "Error removing file: Operation not permitted." Can anyone advise how to delete these files please.


[/size][size=2]

[torreydale]

Don't want to assume. 

Have you shut down the computer, disconnected the printer, and rebooted? 

Have you tried using the File Manager and right clicking on that folder to Open as Administrator?

[Daveyboy]

Have you shut down the computer NO, Disconnected the printer NO, Rebooted NO
Having completed the above I rerun baobab and achieved exactly the same results as before

Have you tried using the File Manager and right clicking on that folder to Open as Administrator? As relatively new to Linux I didn't have the confidence to delete files using this method without guidance.
Have now done as you suggested and I was able to delete all the files in question.

Having rebooted once more and double checked everything now seems to be how it should so thank you once again Torreydale for all your assistance, much appreciated

[shaggytwodope]

Have you shut down the computer NO, Disconnected the printer NO, Rebooted NO
Having completed the above I rerun baobab and achieved exactly the same results as before

Have you tried using the File Manager and right clicking on that folder to Open as Administrator? As relatively new to Linux I didn't have the confidence to delete files using this method without guidance.
Have now done as you suggested and I was able to delete all the files in question.

Having rebooted once more and double checked everything now seems to be how it should so thank you once again Torreydale for all your assistance, much appreciated

Any and all files in /tmp are removed at shutdown. So if this happens again it's a temp solution. Finding the cause of what is generating the files tho is kinda hard. The random-ish filenames makes referencing this very hard.

With that said, has it always done this?  Or is it a recent thing? Can you share a system report (either in lite control center or located in the menu MENU>SYSTEM> CREATE SYSTEM REPORT) and post that here.

[Daveyboy]

It appears to be that the canon printer retains a copy of all files printed in case you wish to reprint them at a later date from the printer control panel - quite what their logic is in providing such a facility is beyond me as it just creates reams of unnecessary files.

I believe that I have now managed to switch this facility off so expect this to be an end to the problem