Ubuntu “root” partition slowly filling up… (Part 2)

Posted on May 17, 2022 by Len Rodriguez

While the three programs discussed in Part 1 ( https://pacosf.com/ubuntu-root-partition-slowly-filling-up/ ) helped keep the root partition as small as possible, software updates and new software installations continued to slowly eat up the available space and we needed to come up with a long term solution.

To buy some time to come up with a long term solution, I reduced the Swap partition down from 30GB to 20GB and then increased the root partition from 28GB to 38GB. Eventually that would also fill up so for a long term solution I purchased a 1TB NVMe Drive to replace the 500GB NVMe that came with the laptop. I guess the 500GB was not the ideal storage space for a dual boot laptop, should have gone with 1TB from the start.

Before:

After:

1TB NVMe:

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B098WL46RS?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

M.2 NVMe SATA SSD Enclosure Adapter, USB C 3.1 Gen 2:

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B094QMCVJV?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

Step 1: Backup existing 500GB NVMe to my Synology NAS as a backup file using Clonezilla. In case something went wrong I would have a file to restore the 500GB NVMe.

How to save a Clonezilla full disk image to a server/NAS over SSH:

https://danielrosehill.medium.com/how-to-save-a-clonezilla-full-disk-image-to-an-nas-over-ssh-771beb37f08b

Step 2: Clone existing 500GB NVMe drive to the new 1TB NVMe using an external enclosure:

Clonezilla Disk to Disk Clone – In this example: Clone small disk to larger disk:

https://clonezilla.org/show-live-doc-content.php?topic=clonezilla-live/doc/03_Disk_to_disk_clone

Step 3: Remove 500GB NVMe and installed the 1TB NVMe

Boot up the computer and everything was there on the new 1TB.

While running Ubuntu used installed GParted and moved partitions nvme0n1p4, 1p5 & 1P6 to the end of the new drive to make room for moving and expanding some of the other partitions.

Expanded 1p9 partition (home) to 410GB, however when I tried to move it up to end just before 1p4 it would not move since it was mounted as long as I was running Ubuntu.

I had to create a GParted Live bootable USB to boot off of.

How to create a GParted live USB drive in Ubuntu, Linux Mint:

https://www.fosslinux.com/1068/how-to-create-a-gparted-live-usb-drive-in-ubuntu-linux-mint-and-derivatives.htm

Using the GParted USB, I Moved 1p9 to be just before 1p4

Then:

Expanded 1p8, my swap, to 40GB
Moved 1p8 to be just before 1p9
Expanded 1p7, my root, to 98GB
Moved 1p7 to be just before 1p8

Now we have a large “unallocated” section before 1p7 and 1p3, the Windows partition

Decided to resize the Windows partition by running Windows 11, using [disk manager] expanded 1p3 to 366GB, using up all the space on the 1TB NVMe except for 1MB.

The end result looks like this:

Root increased to 98GB, Swap is back to 40GB, Ubuntu Home increased to 410GB, and Windows 11 increased to 366GB.

Ubuntu “root” partition slowly filling up…

Posted on May 9, 2022 by Len Rodriguez

My laptop is a Dell Inspiron 5402 with a 500GB NVMe SSD Drive, and over the past 18 months the “root” partition has slowly filled up to 83%. The root partition was 27.94GB and only 4.63GB remained unused.

I used the Ubuntu Disk Usage Analyzer on the laptop to find what was filling up the partition.

The three first steps I used to get the 83% under control are:

1 – The biggest bunch of files was found in the Logs folder. I was able to get that controlled by following the instructions in this article:

Free up Disk Space – Clear Systemd Journal Logs in Ubuntu 20.04

Free up Disk Space – Clear Systemd Journal Logs in Ubuntu 20.04 | 22.04

The best feature of this article is that you don’t just remove older logs, you also can set a limit to how much disk size for logs based upon how old the logs are, a maximum total size for the logs, and limit the number of logs.

2 – Another tool shows you how to clean up old Snap package versions:

How to Clean Up Snap Package Versions in Linux

https://itsfoss.com/clean-snap-packages/

All you have to do to clean out old Snap packages is to copy/paste a small script from the article and save it in your home directory to run every month or so to remove the older versions. The article is very clear and works great, just follow the steps in the article to set it up.

3 – uCareSystem is an all in one system maintenance tool for Ubuntu & Linux Mint

uCareSystem – All-in-one system update and maintenance tool for Ubuntu/LinuxMint

uCareSystem – All-in-one system update and maintenance tool for Ubuntu/LinuxMint

This tool’s features are:

Update package lists (It will refresh package index)
Downloads and install updates
Update packages and system libraries to latest available version
Remove unneeded, obsolete & orphaned packages
Remove old kernels (It keeps the current and previous one for safety purpose)
Remove unused config files
Clean downloaded temporary packages

Easy to install and use on a regular basis.

Unfortunately these three processes did not permanently solve the problem, however it helped buy some time while I continued to look for a more permanent/long-term solution.

More info on that in the next post….

Insync not working with Ubuntu Jammy (FIXED)

Posted on May 2, 2022 by Len Rodriguez

While trying to get Insync to work after upgrading to Ubuntu 22.04, Jammy, I received this message:

Err:5 http://apt.insync.io/ubuntu 3 jammy InRelease
403 Forbidden
Reading package lists… Done
E: Failed to fetch http://apt.insync.io/ubuntu/dists/jammy/InRelease 4 403 Forbidden
E: The repository ‘http://apt.insync.io/ubuntu 3 jammy InRelease’ is not signed.
N: Updating from such a repository can’t be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.

This morning, May 2, 2022, they released a new version for Jammy.

I first tried sudo apt update, sudo apt upgrade, and it worked but I got a bunch of new errors in the terminal when I did a sudo apt update.

Decided to take a different approach and it cleared all the apt update errors, all is working again.

Download Insync_3.7.5.50350-jammy_amd64.deb

Ubuntu 22.04 –
https://cdn.insynchq.com/builds/linux/insync_3.8.6.50504-jammy_amd64.deb

Or use their Download Page:

https://www.insynchq.com/downloads

Then follow these steps:

1. Quit Insync
2 Remove existing Insync – Open downloaded Insync_3.7.5.50350-jammy_amd64.deb with Software Install, click red trash can
3. Remove all Insync in Software and Updates under Other Software
4. Remove all Insync files in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/
5. Open downloaded Insync_3.7.5.50350-jammy_amd64.deb with Software Install and click Install button

When the install was completed, I did not have to set it up again, the new install picked up on the previous installed information.

McAfee Virus Pop Up Scam

Posted on April 22, 2022 by Len Rodriguez

A few days ago I messed up by clicking on show that I am not a Robot. This turned out to embed into my browser and since then I got pop up notifications saying that McAfee discovered 5 viruses on my Linux computer. I don’t have McAfee on this computer.

After browsing for an answer I found these sites:

https://www.pcrisk.com/removal-guides/22484-mcafee-your-pc-is-infected-with-5-viruses-pop-up-scam

https://howtoremove.guide/mcafee-virus-popup-scam/

The 1st link shows what the scam is and has some information on how to block it, the 2nd link shows how to block this scam on several different browsers. I am using Firefox and followed their instructions and successfully blocked the scam’s pop up messages.

I was able to identify the website that needed to be blocked by doing a search for 3.espress-new.com and the search results all said that the site was a scam.

Hope that you don’t need to use this information, but if you do, it should help you solve the problem.

Two Factor Authentication

Posted on July 17, 2015 by Len Rodriguez

Online Security – 2FA

Since we are all hearing about online security breaches on the news, it seems like more and more often I am coming across articles discussing Two Factor Authentication (2FA), so my curiosity got the best of me and I started reading about it.

Call it old-fashioned but we used to consider security to be having a username and a password. We are being told to not use simple passwords, mix in capital letters and punctuation to make them harder to guess. Now it’s being recommended that we go even further than that, and that’s where 2FA comes into the picture.

If that peaks your curiosity, you can read the full article HERE.

Broken Link Checker

Posted on December 1, 2013 by Len Rodriguez

Broken Links on your WordPress Site

How are you making sure that all the links on your WordPress site are working? Did somebody you linked to change their site and your link to that site is now broken? As your site grows and you have a lot of links, it can be very time consuming manually verifying each and every outbound link on your site.

I was not really looking for this plugin, however every time I read a “Top Ten” plugin list, I kept seeing Broken Link Checker, so I decided to check it out. I installed it on this site and it immediately found one broken link. Within a week it found another. With all the links on this site it might have taken weeks or months for me to stumble upon those links that were no longer working.

Broken Link Checker is so simple to install and use, and it does such a good job, I don’t know why anybody would not want it on their WordPress site.

There are not too many options to configu

Google XML Sitemaps

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Len Rodriguez

XML Sitemaps

The Google XML Sitemaps plugin is a Must Have if you don’t already have something on your WordPress site to generate a sitemap. XML is a format that is recognized by the web crawlers of Google, Ask.com, Yahoo and Bing Search. XML Sitemaps were developed as a standard format in 2005 by Google and then later adopted by Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com. It is commonly also know as a “Google Sitemap”. If you are really curious about what an XML sitemap is and how it works, then you can read more of the details at Sitemaps.org.

Why do you need Google XML Sitemaps?

When search engines such as Google crawl your site so that they can index your pages, it makes the process simpler and more accurate if you have a sitemap for our blog or web site. This plugin automatically generates your sitemap and places it in the correct location on your web server for the search engines to find. Any time that your site changes, it makes a new sitemap and notifies the search engines that something has changed.

WordPress Plugins

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Len Rodriguez

Essential WordPress Plugins

WordPress plugins come in many categories such as plugins for Posts and Pages, Links, Social Media, Images, Sidebar Widgets, Editor Enhancements, Search Engine Optimization and XML Sitemaps.

To learn how to customize your WordPress site with various plugins and other enhancements to the basic WordPress installation, we welcome you to check out all of our Web Site and WordPress articles. We are constantly updating our offering so, be sure to subscribe to the blog so you keep informed on new items by email.

Be sure to check out our new series of articles on WordPress Plugins at

pacosf.com

NEW! — WordPress How-To Series

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Len Rodriguez

WordPress How-To’s

We have started a new series of articles which will guide you through all you need to learn to get a Word Press site or blog setup and running. You will find the Word Press Articles in the black navigation bar at the top of each screen as well as in the side navigation bar on the right side of every page.

As this series of pages evolve on this site, we will cover Installing Word Press on your Web Hosting servers, selecting a theme, Pages versus Posts, Widgets, Plugins and more.

Make sure you subscribe to our blog so you will know when we have posted a new WordPress How To article. To Subscribe, enter your email address in the Subscribe to Blog via Email part of the Right Side Bar of this page.

NEW! Download Pages in PDF Format

Posted on March 4, 2012 by Len Rodriguez

Download Pages in PDF Format

To make it easier to follow our How To’s while working on your website, there is now a Download This Page in PDF Format icon at the bottom of each of our pages.

Click the button to get a PDF copy of the page that you can print and reference while you are working with your site or configuring settings on your web host, email account, etc…

The Paco Project

My Wordpress Blog