Arch Linux

SD

Member

Registered: 2025-01-04

Posts: 43

[SOLVED] Root partition with no space

I have used

 ncdu /  

and I get

  158.3 GiB [##########] /home                                          
   39.2 GiB [##        ] /.snapshots
   15.0 GiB [          ] /steamapps
   14.0 GiB [          ] /usr
    2.4 GiB [          ] /var
  995.0 MiB [          ] /opt
  188.0 MiB [          ] /boot
.  13.9 MiB [          ] /run
   11.0 MiB [          ] /etc
    9.7 MiB [          ] /root
  268.0 KiB [          ] /tmp
    8.0 KiB [          ] /secure
@   4.0 KiB [          ]  sbin
@   4.0 KiB [          ]  lib64
@   4.0 KiB [          ]  lib
@   4.0 KiB [          ]  bin
.   0.0   B [          ] /proc
    0.0   B [          ] /sys
    0.0   B [          ] /dev
    0.0   B [          ] /srv
e   0.0   B [          ] /mnt

but even trying to delete big files (for example, I deleted 7 GiB worth of ttf fonts just because it was too big) did not change the size, as shown by dysk or ncdu, the latter showing apparent size of 128.2 TiB instead of 128 GiB due to proc, most likely. So there is an issue. I use snapshots from snapper as can be seen above and I have a different partition for home with specific snapshots. Even deleting and syncing snapshots from root (currently only have 1 or 2 that I want to rollback to, undochange in that file because it did not do anything...) does not change the filesystem size. I have already limited the var/log directory and deleted logs before and just deleted the pacman cache to no avail. Nothing I do seems to really free up space and I'm at a bit of a loss here.

Last edited by SD (2026-01-27 18:13:36)

Lone_Wolf

Administrator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 14,927

Re: [SOLVED] Root partition with no space

Is root on Btrfs ?
If yes, check https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Btrfs# … _on_device

---

Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

clean chroot building not flexible enough ?
Try clean chroot manager by graysky

SD

Member

Registered: 2025-01-04

Posts: 43

Re: [SOLVED] Root partition with no space

Yeah, it's a btrfs system and it seems to be an issue with snapshots being nested inside others. I'm using btdu to check. Basically I have this, when I run btrfs subvolume list /

ID 256 gen 1154227 top level 5 path var/lib/portables
ID 257 gen 1154227 top level 5 path var/lib/machines
ID 258 gen 1155073 top level 5 path .snapshots
ID 436 gen 1154227 top level 258 path .snapshots/178/snapshot
ID 437 gen 1154229 top level 436 path .snapshots/178/snapshot/.snapshots
ID 2102 gen 287416 top level 437 path .snapshots/178/snapshot/.snapshots/1635/snapshot
ID 2103 gen 288388 top level 437 path .snapshots/178/snapshot/.snapshots/1636/snapshot
ID 2113 gen 289092 top level 437 path .snapshots/178/snapshot/.snapshots/1646/snapshot
ID 2125 gen 289683 top level 437 path .snapshots/178/snapshot/.snapshots/1658/snapshot
ID 2153 gen 291383 top level 437 path .snapshots/178/snapshot/.snapshots/1685/snapshot
ID 2161 gen 291848 top level 437 path .snapshots/178/snapshot/.snapshots/1693/snapshot
ID 2163 gen 291875 top level 437 path .snapshots/178/snapshot/.snapshots/1695/snapshot
ID 2164 gen 291998 top level 437 path .snapshots/178/snapshot/.snapshots/1696/snapshot
ID 6183 gen 1113937 top level 258 path .snapshots/4197/snapshot
ID 6782 gen 1152274 top level 258 path .snapshots/4796/snapshot
ID 6817 gen 1154203 top level 258 path .snapshots/4831/snapshot
ID 6818 gen 1154248 top level 258 path .snapshots/4832/snapshot
ID 6819 gen 1154288 top level 258 path .snapshots/1/snapshot
ID 6820 gen 1154353 top level 258 path .snapshots/2/snapshot
ID 6821 gen 1154418 top level 258 path .snapshots/3/snapshot
ID 6822 gen 1154489 top level 258 path .snapshots/4/snapshot
ID 6823 gen 1154565 top level 258 path .snapshots/5/snapshot
ID 6824 gen 1154645 top level 258 path .snapshots/6/snapshot
ID 6825 gen 1154729 top level 258 path .snapshots/7/snapshot
ID 6826 gen 1154804 top level 258 path .snapshots/8/snapshot
ID 6827 gen 1154881 top level 258 path .snapshots/9/snapshot
ID 6829 gen 1155072 top level 258 path .snapshots/11/snapshot
ID 6830 gen 1155035 top level 258 path .snapshots/12/snapshot
ID 6831 gen 1155055 top level 258 path .snapshots/13/snapshot
ID 6832 gen 1155071 top level 258 path .snapshots/14/snapshot
ID 6833 gen 1166551 top level 258 path .snapshots/15/snapshot
ID 6834 gen 1166537 top level 6833 path .snapshots
ID 7013 gen 1166404 top level 6834 path .snapshots/1/snapshot
ID 7014 gen 1166462 top level 6834 path .snapshots/2/snapshot
ID 7015 gen 1166519 top level 6834 path .snapshots/3/snapshot

and the 178 and, inside it, snapshots that are 226 GiB (whenever I delete one, it seems to "jump" into another) seem to be the major issue. I also have one 4197, I believe, that has 77 GiB. All mostly from games I uninstalled months ago. Issue is understanding where I'm booting from (when I use btdu, it says I'm mounting from 15, which is a new snapshot, just a couple weeks old iirc) but then it has these old snapshots that I can't delete with btdu because it says they're not empty

Edit: It's now solved. It was an old snapshot, a mess of nested snapshots nested within others, I guess... used btrfs-assistant later but with btdu, after mounting /mnt /btrfs-root, I was able to see and delete an old snapshot that was unseen by other tools or, at least, not able to be deleted. Freed up over 240 GiB just with that so now this issue is sorted out. Ought to change the home partition to a /@subvol but that's for another time. Everything is working properly now.

Last edited by SD (2026-01-27 18:13:02)