Arch Linux

4romany

Member

Registered: 2021-11-27

Posts: 25

(SOLVED) Pacman update fails - not enough disk space

I have a 19.5G partition for /  and df -k shows 84% used after doing a "pacman -Scc".   I ran "ncdu /" looking for anything that might jump out as a large user and really did not find anything.   The nvme0n1 drive is partitioned this way:

nvme0n1     259:0    0 476.9G  0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1    0   511M  0 part /boot
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2    0  19.5G  0 part /
└─nvme0n1p3 259:3    0 456.9G  0 part /mnt/home

The nvme0n1p3 partition - mounted as /mnt/home - is just a temporary copy of my home directory - that can be deleted any time.  The actual /home is on a different drive. 

I see a couple of options:

- one is to shrink nvme0n1p3 - the unused partition - and expand nvme0n1p2.    Not something I've tried doing before but I can read.
-  two is to delete nvme0n1p3  - and repartitions it as new 40G nvme0n1p3 for / to exist on.

The 2nd option seems safer - boot up on arch fob - make partition deletes/creates  - copy existing "/" over to new 40G partition  - make changes on fstab so that "/" is mounted on the new nvme0n1p3 - and reboot. 

Comments/suggestions/criticisms welcomed - while I'm not totally a newbie I know I'm not far from it.   If the 2nd option is the one to go with what the best method of copying the old / to the new /?   

Thanks!

....Romany

Last edited by 4romany (2024-02-04 18:53:24)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,231

Re: (SOLVED) Pacman update fails - not enough disk space

You can delete the partition of /home and simply grow your root filesystem/partition without copying or changing anything. I'd strongly suggest you use a gparted live disk for that, because it makes this process visually simple while ensuring the operations happen in the correct order.
I'd also suggest you use more than 40GB if you're already at the limit right now there might be some more headroom you'd want.

4romany

Member

Registered: 2021-11-27

Posts: 25

Re: (SOLVED) Pacman update fails - not enough disk space

I've used gparted many time but only under a live Ubuntu fob - I did not know that gparted had their own live image.  I'll try that - that sounds pretty straight forward...thanks for the quick reply!

EDIT:   Success!   Had some issue getting a bootable gparted to work right - but after that the resizing part took only seconds.  I made the mistake of deleting the /mnt/home partition - instead of just shrinking it - and so when I rebooted it would not boot because it could no long mount that partition.   Quick boot on the Arch fob and mount the / partition I deleted the entry in the /etc/fstab file that pointed to it.  Rebooted and it came right up.  Thanks again for your help!

Last edited by 4romany (2024-02-04 18:51:22)