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I set up an Ubuntu rig to host Plex and act as a file server on my local network. I'm new to Ubuntu, so I followed directions and things seemed to be running fine--no problems with boot up or memory. After about two or three weeks, I noticed Plex was running weird, so I decided it was time to run updates and restart the rig. When I log back in, there's a text box saying memory was low. I find that odd, and figure that's something I can look into if it persists after a restart. I run restart, and start-up gets stuck on a black screen with white text telling me I have some hardware options are turned off in BIOS. After some Googling, I get into Recovery Mode and System Stats show my / directory is at 99% capacity (19gb/20gb). I try running "Clean Up" and nothing happens. I opened root and ran sudo apt-get clean and sudo apt-get autoremove. No change. I even tried deleting everything in /tmp/*. Still no change. How do I get the root directory small enough that I can boot again?

I realize 20gb is probably too low for the root directory; however, I don't want to resize partitions until I've had the chance to back-up the files on the system. I do have a second hard drive in the system that is untouched (I was planning on setting it up as the back-up drive), I don't know if that could be leveraged to find a solution here.

EDIT: Apologies for not including this info in the original post; Ubuntu version 23.04. If I understand it correctly, the 4tb hard drive is partitioned into 20gb / where it boots from, 100mb swap, and the rest in /home.

Forgot the Jacobian
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    You've not provided any Ubuntu product & release details; is this a server you're talking about? as you 25GB has been the minimum recommended disk space for / since Ubuntu 17.10 Desktop (ie. all releases using GNOME 3 & later). As you add more functionality you'll need more space; or are you talking about a server (no GUI/desktop)? and what release? – guiverc May 24 '23 at 00:16
  • It would be helpful to know whether the whole system is in the same / partition, or whether you have separate partitions for /home, /boot, /var and so on. Also when you refer to "memory" do you actually mean disk space, or is there a separate issue with memory usage? – steeldriver May 24 '23 at 00:32
  • @steeldriver I added additional information to the OP – Forgot the Jacobian May 24 '23 at 01:18
  • You've add release details; but not said if this is Ubuntu 23.04 Server (where 20GB will be less of a problem) or Ubuntu 23.04 Desktop (where the recommended minimum disk space is 25GB) You can usually still login to a text terminal even with lack of disk space; otherwise you can use a live system to backup data. Each additional app you add needs space in / (with few exceptions; some like appimage* can provide you to store them elsewhere*) but we still don't know if this is a Server or Desktop install. – guiverc May 24 '23 at 01:30
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    Does this answer your question? No more disk space: How can I find what is taking up the space? Using apt clean and apt autoremove is a common mistake -- software packages generally take up little space and are rarely the cause of filled storage. – user535733 May 24 '23 at 04:41
  • Does this answer your question? Root drive is running out of disk space. How can I free up space? – karel May 27 '23 at 07:23

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