Arch Linux

kinru

Member

From: East Coast USA

Registered: 2019-03-23

Posts: 99

Space being used in Swap Partition rather than the Root Partit[solved]

I noticed this while doing the setup after installing Arch Linux to make it usable. When I installed Steam and launched it, the GUI said

Fatal Error: Steam needs 250MB of free disk space

I though that's weird because I partitioned my drives like this, and my /etc/fstab file looks like this

I ran

 df -k 

and it gave me this output .

So I don't know why my swap partition appears as though it is being used as root, I have plenty of free space on /dev/sda3, however /dev/sda2 is being used.

This also happens when installing programs with pacman, it is not just a problem with Steam

Last edited by kinru (2019-08-08 20:31:24)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,423

Re: Space being used in Swap Partition rather than the Root Partit[solved]

lsblk -f

? Given current evidence, it looks like you mixed up your swap and root partition's UUIDs.

If not in your fstab, then potentially in your bootloader config.

Last edited by V1del (2019-08-08 20:07:05)

frostschutz

Member

Registered: 2013-11-15

Posts: 1,658

Re: Space being used in Swap Partition rather than the Root Partit[solved]

file -s /dev/sda*

You made a filesystem (mkfs) on your swap partition /dev/sda2 and that's what your system is running off as / root. The interesting question then is, what's up with /dev/sda3?

I though that's weird because I partitioned my drives like this

A filesystem is a filesystem because you mkfs it, and a swap is a swap because you mkswap it; the partition type itself does not mean anything unfortunately, that's just advisory not mandatory.

So your partition table shows good intentions but the reality is different.

kinru

Member

From: East Coast USA

Registered: 2019-03-23

Posts: 99

Re: Space being used in Swap Partition rather than the Root Partit[solved]

Here is the output from

 lsblk -f 

NAME   FSTYPE  LABEL       UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINT
sda                                                                            
├─sda1 vfat                8483-EC2C                             510.9M     0% /efi
├─sda2 ext4                d8404e5b-c45b-4084-9898-0aea3f95079c  111.2M    93% /
└─sda3 swap                bc7c8de5-c678-45d6-b32a-6dc9aa0ed407                [SWAP]
sdb    iso9660 ARCH_201905 2019-05-02-15-52-35-00                              
├─sdb1 iso9660 ARCH_201905 2019-05-02-15-52-35-00                              
└─sdb2 vfat    ARCHISO_EFI 21C8-EA6A

And the pastebin link in case the formatting of the output is messed up.

It's clear to see from the command I must have messed up the partition/formatting/mounting steps. Is there a way to rectify the partitions, i.e.:

sda1 vfat           /efi
sda2 swap        none
sda3 root          /

I have also a question, if I need to reinstall, should I make a home partition, and, should the largest partition go last? I ask the second question since when partitioning with fdisk the first and second sector options would be hard to calculate if the swap partition goes last.

EDIT: and regarding the second post, it was a simple mistake I did the wrong mkfs on the wrong partition, as doing the partition and mount wrong because I was in a big rush to get the system up after my graphics card died.

EDIT 2: I think I will just reinstall Arch because this whole thing is such a mess that isn't worth fixing because the system is practically a fresh install anyway.

Last edited by kinru (2019-08-08 20:25:10)

frostschutz

Member

Registered: 2013-11-15

Posts: 1,658

Re: Space being used in Swap Partition rather than the Root Partit[solved]

ok, so actually mixed up partition names when mkfs, mkswap, it seems like

from live cd, roughly like this:

swapoff -a
wipefs -a /dev/sda3
cp /dev/sda2 /dev/sda3
fsck /dev/sda3
resize2fs /dev/sda3
tune2fs -U random /dev/sda2

That copies the 8G sda2 to 900G sda3 and resizes the filesytem.

Then change UUID of sda2 so (hopefully) it won't be mounted. sda3 has the old UUID so nothing else has to be changed.

Reboot and check `df -h` again

Something went wrong, sda2 is still there. Otherwise if everything works, you can then make a new swap partition on sda2.

wipefs -a /dev/sda2
mkswap /dev/sda2
# update uuid in fstab, resume, etc.

I think I will just reinstall Arch because this whole thing is such a mess that isn't worth fixing because the system is practically a fresh install anyway.

biggest danger in this context is that you may already have lost writes due to full filesystem. trying to install a package maybe nice enough to warn you about 250MB missing but, other things don't warn you at all they just fail

Last edited by frostschutz (2019-08-08 21:00:19)