Partition almost full, but filelight shows lot of free space

Support
1

Dolphin shows 3,4 GiB free space, filelight about 50 GiB.
I uninstalled several progams via pacman and bazar, emptied trash, but free space does not change. It happened yesterday or so, the days before, free space was about 50 GiB.
What could be the reason? What should i do? I am new to manjaro and btrfs.

 inxi -Fnzy                                                                                    ξ‚² βœ” 
System:
  Kernel: 6.18.3-2-MANJARO arch: x86_64 bits: 64
  Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 6.5.4 Distro: Manjaro Linux
Machine:
  Type: Desktop System: Dell product: OptiPlex 7010 v: 01
    serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Dell model: 0773VG v: A02 serial: <superuser required> Firmware: BIOS
    vendor: Dell v: A13 date: 03/25/2013
CPU:
  Info: dual core model: Intel Core i3-3225 bits: 64 type: MT MCP cache:
    L2: 512 KiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1600 min/max: 1600/3300 cores: 1: 1600 2: 1600 3: 1600
    4: 1600
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA GP108 [GeForce GT 1030] driver: nvidia v: 575.64.05
  Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.21.1.21 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.9
    compositor: kwin_wayland driver: X: loaded: nvidia
    gpu: nvidia,nvidia-nvswitch resolution: 3840x2160~60Hz
  API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: nvidia,swrast
    platforms: gbm,wayland,x11,surfaceless,device
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6.0 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: nvidia mesa v: 575.64.05
    renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030/PCIe/SSE2
  API: Vulkan v: 1.4.335 drivers: nvidia surfaces: N/A
  Info: Tools: api: clinfo, eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo
    de: kscreen-console,kscreen-doctor gpu: nvidia-settings,nvidia-smi
    wl: wayland-info x11: xdpyinfo,xprop
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Definition Audio
    driver: snd_hda_intel
  Device-2: NVIDIA GP108 High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
  API: ALSA v: k6.18.3-2-MANJARO status: kernel-api
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.4.9 status: active
Network:
  Device-1: Intel 82579LM Gigabit Network driver: e1000e
  IF: eno1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 1.37 TiB used: 955.73 GiB (68.1%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: SanDisk model: SDSSDH3256G size: 238.47 GiB
  ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: HGST (Hitachi) model: HTS541010A9E680
    size: 931.51 GiB
  ID-3: /dev/sdc vendor: SanDisk model: USB 3.2Gen1 size: 232.97 GiB
    type: USB
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 79.9 GiB used: 74.12 GiB (92.8%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/sda1
  ID-2: /home size: 79.9 GiB used: 74.12 GiB (92.8%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/sda1
  ID-3: /var/log size: 79.9 GiB used: 74.12 GiB (92.8%) fs: btrfs
    dev: /dev/sda1
Swap:
  Alert: No swap data was found.
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 38.0 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A
Info:
  Memory: total: 12 GiB available: 11.63 GiB used: 4.58 GiB (39.4%)
  Processes: 300 Uptime: 2h 59m Shell: Zsh inxi: 3.3.40
 οŒ’ ξ‚°  ~ ξ‚°

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2

btrfs requires periodic maintenance. It can appear full when it’s not, because of how it allocates space on the filesystem. The remedy is simple, though, even though it can take a bit of time, i.e. you have to run a β€œbtrfs balance” operation on the filesystem, which will then physically relocate chunks of data and metadata in order to optimize disk space usage.

You can start by doing a full balance, and then later you may decide to fine-tune it even more. :wink: :backhand_index_pointing_down:

sudo btrfs balance start --full-balance /

Afterwards, you can check the results with… :backhand_index_pointing_down:

btrfs filesystem usage -h /

You can enable an automatic rebalancing of your filesystem by installing btrfsmaintenance from the repository, but you will need to configure it by way of the file /etc/default/btrfsmaintenance β€” the file is documented and has some example settings.

Another thing to be mindful of is to periodically clean out old snapshots if you have automatic snapshot creation enabled. You can install btrfs-assistant for that β€” it’s a graphical tool.

Lastly, you may also periodically want to clean out your package cache. Normally, this should happen automatically β€” the default is to leave 2 or 3 generations of the packages from previous updates, so that you can always downgrade a problematic package if necessary β€” with the command… :backhand_index_pointing_down:

sudo paccache -rk0

β€œ-rk0” means no packages will be left in the cache. Replace the β€œ0” by the number of package generations you wish to keep β€” e.g. -rk2 to leave the last 2 generations of downloaded packages.

3 Likes
3

When deleting files with btrfs, you may have to wait a short time for btrfs to show the free space. (or do you use snapshots?)

You find good Information about Btrfs in the wiki, and in Out of space

1 Like
5

Many thanks for your prompt reply and your essential infos.
Made a balance, but the problem was timeshift!

Timeshift was scheduled for daily use, so it created a lot of files …
Filelight does not show these files, it just ignores it and therefore gives wrong info about the used space.

Anyway, i have learned a lot. Thank you for your suppoert :smiley:

1 Like
6