Methods for safely Increasing Disk Space on boot disk partition

[chacma]

Ahoi Fedora community.

I have an issue on Fedora 33 Workstation wrt low disk space on my boot disk. I often look at Disk Usage Analyser (DUA), but I’m not sure what I can delete safely without jeopardising my system. In the past I have deleted the cache contents in DUA menus and I have also started to delete a lot of programs, files and folders, but the issue still persists.

I regularly run:

sudo dnf pkcon refresh force -c
sudo dnf autoremove
sudo dnf clean all

…but these commands only help minimally and I still receive popups about low disk space.

This problem has limited me from updating my system, installing needed programs and it is now starting to affect basic everyday processes that fundamentally undermines the usefulness of my pc.

Below is the output of sudo fdisk -l:

Disk /dev/sda: 111.8 GiB, 120040980480 bytes, 234455040 sectors
Disk model: WDC WDS120G2G0A-
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: E603AA7B-5FCD-46AC-913A-153DA2E08BEF

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 40 409639 409600 200M EFI System
/dev/sda2 409640 117408855 116999216 55.8G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda3 117409792 119506943 2097152 1G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda4 179754256 233185463 53431208 25.5G Apple HFS/HFS+
/dev/sda5 233185464 234454999 1269536 619.9M Apple boot
/dev/sda6 119506944 179752959 60246016 28.7G Linux LVM

Partition table entries are not in disk order.

Disk /dev/mapper/fedora_localhost–live-root: 25.75 GiB, 27648851968 bytes, 54001664 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk /dev/mapper/fedora_localhost–live-swap: 2.98 GiB, 3196059648 bytes, 6242304 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk /dev/zram0: 4 GiB, 4294967296 bytes, 1048576 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 4096 = 4096 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes

Disk /dev/sdb: 29.3 GiB, 31457280000 bytes, 61440000 sectors
Disk model: ProductCode
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1 * 2048 61439998 61437951 29.3G c W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Any help with the above would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance!

[barryascott]

@chacma

Fedora 33 Workstation

Are you really run this very old Fedora version?

Could you post the output of lsblk -f that has more info on your disks?
Also what does hostnamectl report?

[vekruse (Villy Kruse)]

As far as I can see, the boot file system are big enough. It would be helpful to know what takes up the space. You run the command sudo du -ah /boot |sort -h, and it will show you what takes up all the space. Once we know that, it is easier to then fix it.

[chacma]

Thanks for the quick response. Yes I’m running this old version because of this problem.

Here’s the output of lsblk -f:

NAME FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINT
sda
├─sda1
│ vfat FAT32 EFI 67E3-17ED 161.5M 18% /boot/efi
├─sda2
│ vfat FAT32 DATA 8017-150E 6.3G 89% /run/media
├─sda3
│ ext4 1.0 68a70e29-35b4-477b-a4ac-c48e1762804b 661.2M 25% /boot
├─sda4
│ hfsplu OSX* de6577a7-b7b3-33ab-b71b-5b4310edec3f 954.8M 96% /run/media
├─sda5
│ hfsplu Recovery HD
│ 503e2935-0955-36db-9c20-f51cbd80c449
└─sda6
LVM2_m LVM2 q6kh6F-jFpm-s3pe-SDxv-CzG9-bylw-H2erTF
├─fedora_localhost–live-root
│ ext4 1.0 f793b4b1-1e9e-4ead-877a-4a76b0086aa3 0 95% /
└─fedora_localhost–live-swap
swap 1 f69cc95e-5e94-44e0-bb99-37ec18db083f [SWAP]
sdb
└─sdb1
vfat FAT32 1234-5678 28.7G 2% /run/media
sr0
zram0
[SWAP]

hostnamectl:

Operating System: Fedora 33 (Workstation Edition)
CPE OS Name: cpe:/o:fedoraproject:fedora:33
Kernel: Linux 5.11.14-200.fc33.x86_64
Architecture: x86-64

sudo du -ah /boot |sort -h:

0	/boot/grub2/grubenv
512	/boot/efi/EFI/fedora/BOOTIA32.CSV
512	/boot/efi/EFI/fedora/BOOTX64.CSV
512	/boot/efi/mach_kernel
512	/boot/efi/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist
512	/boot/efi/.Trashes/501
1.0K	/boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grubenv
1.0K	/boot/efi/System/Library/CoreServices
1.5K	/boot/efi/System/Library
2.0K	/boot/efi/System
4.0K	/boot/efi/.Trashes/._501
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/cat.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/cmd.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/cmenu.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/config.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/cpuid.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/cpuidtest.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/debug.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/dir.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/disk.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/elf.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/ethersel.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/gpxecmd.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/hexdump.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/host.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/ifcpu64.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/ifplop.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/kbdmap.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/ls.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/meminfo.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/pci.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/pcitest.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/pmload.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/poweroff.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/prdhcp.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/pwd.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/reboot.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/sanboot.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/sdi.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/vesa.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/vesainfo.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/vpdtest.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/whichsys.c32
4.0K	/boot/extlinux/zzjson.c32
4.0K	/boot/loader/entries/9ebb53c49e354b2d92d7e4d22317ed5c-0-rescue.conf
4.0K	/boot/loader/entries/9ebb53c49e354b2d92d7e4d22317ed5c-5.10.20-200.fc33.x86_64.conf
4.0K	/boot/loader/entries/9ebb53c49e354b2d92d7e4d22317ed5c-5.10.22-200.fc33.x86_64.conf
4.0K	/boot/loader/entries/9ebb53c49e354b2d92d7e4d22317ed5c-5.11.14-200.fc33.x86_64.conf
4.0K	/boot/.vmlinuz-5.10.20-200.fc33.x86_64.hmac
4.0K	/boot/.vmlinuz-5.10.22-200.fc33.x86_64.hmac
4.0K	/boot/.vmlinuz-5.11.14-200.fc33.x86_64.hmac
5.0K	/boot/efi/.Trashes
6.5K	/boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg
8.0K	/boot/extlinux/cptime.c32
8.0K	/boot/extlinux/cpu.c32
8.0K	/boot/extlinux/dhcp.c32
8.0K	/boot/extlinux/ifcpu.c32
8.0K	/boot/extlinux/ifmemdsk.c32
8.0K	/boot/extlinux/kontron_wdt.c32
8.0K	/boot/extlinux/lfs.c32
8.0K	/boot/extlinux/linux.c32
8.0K	/boot/extlinux/lua.c32
12K	/boot/extlinux/dmi.c32
12K	/boot/extlinux/gfxboot.c32
12K	/boot/extlinux/mboot.c32
12K	/boot/extlinux/syslinux.c32
16K	/boot/extlinux/dmitest.c32
16K	/boot/extlinux/pxechn.c32
16K	/boot/extlinux/rosh.c32
16K	/boot/extlinux/sysdump.c32
16K	/boot/lost+found
20K	/boot/loader/entries
24K	/boot/extlinux/libmenu.c32
24K	/boot/extlinux/libutil.c32
24K	/boot/loader
28K	/boot/extlinux/chain.c32
28K	/boot/extlinux/memdisk
28K	/boot/extlinux/menu.c32
28K	/boot/extlinux/vesamenu.c32
68K	/boot/extlinux/libgpl.c32
104K	/boot/extlinux/liblua.c32
116K	/boot/extlinux/ldlinux.c32
152K	/boot/elf-memtest86±5.31
152K	/boot/memtest86±5.31
164K	/boot/extlinux/hdt.c32
176K	/boot/extlinux/libcom32.c32
224K	/boot/config-5.10.22-200.fc33.x86_64
228K	/boot/config-5.10.20-200.fc33.x86_64
228K	/boot/config-5.11.14-200.fc33.x86_64
252K	/boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/fbia32.efi
349K	/boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/fbx64.efi
907K	/boot/efi/EFI/fedora/mmia32.efi
947K	/boot/efi/EFI/fedora/shimia32-fedora.efi
953K	/boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/BOOTIA32.EFI
953K	/boot/efi/EFI/fedora/shimia32.efi
1.1M	/boot/extlinux
1.2M	/boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI
1.2M	/boot/efi/EFI/fedora/mmx64.efi
1.2M	/boot/efi/EFI/fedora/shim.efi
1.2M	/boot/efi/EFI/fedora/shimx64.efi
1.2M	/boot/efi/EFI/fedora/shimx64-fedora.efi
1.6M	/boot/efi/EFI/fedora/gcdia32.efi
1.6M	/boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grubia32.efi
2.5M	/boot/efi/EFI/fedora/fonts
2.5M	/boot/efi/EFI/fedora/fonts/unicode.pf2
2.5M	/boot/efi/EFI/fedora/gcdx64.efi
2.5M	/boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grubx64.efi
2.7M	/boot/efi/EFI/BOOT
3.5M	/boot/grub2/themes/system/background.png
3.5M	/boot/grub2/themes/system/fireworks.png
5.4M	/boot/System.map-5.10.20-200.fc33.x86_64
5.4M	/boot/System.map-5.10.22-200.fc33.x86_64
5.4M	/boot/System.map-5.11.14-200.fc33.x86_64
7.0M	/boot/grub2
7.0M	/boot/grub2/themes
7.0M	/boot/grub2/themes/system
11M	/boot/vmlinuz-0-rescue-9ebb53c49e354b2d92d7e4d22317ed5c
11M	/boot/vmlinuz-5.10.20-200.fc33.x86_64
11M	/boot/vmlinuz-5.10.22-200.fc33.x86_64
11M	/boot/vmlinuz-5.11.14-200.fc33.x86_64
16M	/boot/efi/EFI/APPLE
16M	/boot/efi/EFI/APPLE/EXTENSIONS
16M	/boot/efi/EFI/APPLE/EXTENSIONS/Firmware.scap
18M	/boot/efi/EFI/fedora
33M	/boot/initramfs-5.10.20-200.fc33.x86_64.img
33M	/boot/initramfs-5.10.22-200.fc33.x86_64.img
33M	/boot/initramfs-5.11.14-200.fc33.x86_64.img
36M	/boot/efi
36M	/boot/efi/EFI
82M	/boot/initramfs-0-rescue-9ebb53c49e354b2d92d7e4d22317ed5c.img
281M	/boot

[barryascott]

Just to make sure; you do know that Fedora 33 is a long time past its end-of-life and you are getting no package updates?

As such you will not be adding new kernels to /boot and therefore would not seem to need to worry about the size of /boot.

Your /boot is only using 25% of the available diskspace.

[vekruse (Villy Kruse)]

From you listing, your boot partition is not the problem as it is only using 25 % of total capacity. Not is a much more difficult problem with the root file system which is part of a LLVM2 volume located in /dev/sda6. The space could be taken up by files in your home directory, or it can be files in the /var for example log files in /var/log, pr spool files in /var/spool. Also temporary files in /var/tmp could be an issue.

You can expand a LLVM2 volume if you have some free space on a different disk unit, but would not be experienced enough to advise on that.

[chacma]

Thank You ,

Yes, I am very aware of the issues with an old Fedora release. I have bought a new ssd & I’m planning to take everything over to a fresh updated OS on this spacious disk, but I’m struggling to make all of that happen using my current pc because of the problem mentioned above.

I have tried to manage this issue over the years, but it has become critical.

I’m trying to gather some information and guidance on how I can best identify the cause of my problem and what are effective strategies to consider in order to resolve it.

[ernie-07 (Ernest Boyd)]

If you have free space that you can spare in one or more partitions you may use gparted to:

1. Shrink one or more partition(s)
2. Move partitions away from the boot partition to provide room for expansion of the boot partition.
3. Expand the boot partition to available space

[chacma]

Thanx Ernest & Villy,

I have about 6.3gb of wiggle room on the FAT32 partition as shown above. I’m just not sure how to expand the existing ext4 (Fedora) boot disk into the space available that FAT32 partition.

1. What would the process involve for me to safely expand my ext4 partition, with my current OS (Fedora) still on it?
2. How do I shrink the FAT32 partition in a way that merges some of the free space with my ext4 boot drive?

I was under the impression that partition volume sizes cannot be changed without formatting its contents. I can definitely copy/transfer the FAT32 partition’s contents to another external drive if I need to format it. Would I need to do this?

How would these processes look like in practice?

[ernie-07 (Ernest Boyd)]

Have a look at this:

Moving Space Between Partitions

Steps required to resize a fat32 partition or an ext4 partition are identical when using gparted. Following is a link with info about fat32 partition sizing:

Microsoft is finally removing the FAT32 partition size limit in Windows 11

[chacma]

Thank you so much!

I will try this out & post about my experience here.

[computersavvy (Jeff V)]

@chacma

Disk /dev/sda: 111.8 GiB, 120040980480 bytes, 234455040 sectors
Disk model: WDC WDS120G2G0A-
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: E603AA7B-5FCD-46AC-913A-153DA2E08BEF

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 40 409639 409600 200M EFI System
/dev/sda2 409640 117408855 116999216 55.8G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda3 117409792 119506943 2097152 1G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda4 179754256 233185463 53431208 25.5G Apple HFS/HFS+
/dev/sda5 233185464 234454999 1269536 619.9M Apple boot
/dev/sda6 119506944 179752959 60246016 28.7G Linux LVM

Looking at the fdisk output it appears you only have a 120G drive and have windows, apple, and fedora installed, with only 25GiB available for fedora.

The simplest solution would be to obtain another larger drive and either use 2 drives or migrate all the software to the larger drive

[chacma]

Thanx Jeff V.

Yes, this is what I’m ultimately going to do. I already have a new ssd waiting. But I’m also curious about methods of effectively identifying and monitoring what takes up space on a Fedora system as well as methods for managing space. Currently this seems to be a challenge for noobs like myself.

I think the best advice I’ve received here is to move space between partitions using a program like Gparted. I would need to do this from a bootable external drive, which is coincidentally also halfway towards a brand new Fedora install. But I’m currently stuck with a new problem - Fedora Mediawriter crashes as soon as I select an .iso file. I’ve started a new topic about this here. I’m not sure if this is because of my limited operational disk space.

I will post my progress here as I figure this out.

[chacma]

Ahoi!

I managed to get a few steps further in my process. FYI this is how I got past the ‘Mediawriter crashing’ issue. I’m currently trying to wrap my head around Gparted. My outcomes are not quite matching my expectations.

Here’s my process using Gparted in a live USB Fedora 41 WS environment:

1. I successfully reduced a FAT32 partition, that’s used for misc. data storage, by more than 28gb.

2. I then was left with 28+gb of unallocated space.

3. There was a small 1.1gb EXT4 partition between the FAT32 & the 25gb LLVM2 partition where (I think) Fedora is running on. I was not sure what this EXT4 partition is for. After creating the free space this tiny EXT4 partition was now positioned between the new unallocated space and the LLVM2 partition.

4. I tried to move the EXT4 partition so that it would be placed between the FAT32 partition & the new unallocated space. I could not figure this out using Gparted.

5. Then I tried to copy & paste it - based on a forum entry suggestion. That didn’t work for me either.

6. I ended up extending the 1.1gb EXT4 partition into the unallocated space & then shrinking it back down to create unallocated free space on the opposite side as before (next to my LLVM2 Fedora partition) leaving a little bit more space in the EXT4 partition then before - now 1.3gb.

7. I then extended my LLVM2 partition into this unallocated free space.

At this point I thought that was it and that I had solved my disk space problem. When I booted up the older Fedora 33 WS I was met with a ‘Low disk space’ pop-up.
It seems as though nothing had changed on my Fedora boot drive/partition. There is still only 1.4gb of space remaining on it. When I look at the Disks app I a can see the much larger LLVM2 partition that is now 57GB. I thought Fedora was booting from here & running om this partition, but I was obviously wrong. So right now I’m confused about where exactly Fedora is running/booting from based on my current partition setup.

Here’s what it looks like:

I know I’m very close to sorting this out. Is there anyone that can help clarify where which partition I need to expand to ?

[chacma]

Out of curiosity I decided to shift the extra space to the tiny Ext4 Partition labelled “Fedora System” (1.4gb) in the screen-shot above using a similar method laid out above, with Gparted.

This again/still did not make any difference to my low disk space problem. I don’t know why my system is not able to make use of any of these partition reconfigurations.

[pg-tips (P G)]

Have you extended the LLVM logical volume to take advantage of the extra space in its physical volume?

I’m not an LLVM user but this Red Hat documentation may be helpful: How to resize a logical volume with 5 simple LVM commands

[chacma]

Thank you P G

I was not aware that there may be more processes involved to make this work, beyond what I could read in the official Gparted documentation. I am looking into the logical volume issue that u linked in your response.

[computersavvy (Jeff V)]

LVM management is not directly related to using gparted and adjusting of partition sizes.

Check the man pages for managing LVM volumes.
It sounds as if you were able to expand the LVM partition properly, but the logical volume (LV) within that partition remained unchanged.
Some related commands that may be of benefit to check status and make changes include
pvdisplay (to show the defined physical devices used)
vgdisplay (to show the defined volume groups and usage, including any free space)
lvdisplay (to show the details of defined logical volumes)
There are many other commands for managing each of those levels including specifically lvextend that may allow enlarging the logical volume to use the currently free space in the volume group (VG)

You can see all the related commands with ls /usr/sbin/lv* ls /usr/sbin/pv* and ls /usr/sbin/vg*
Each listed command has its own man page to explain the usage.
Each of those commands must also be performed using sudo.

Be careful as well since extending an LV to obtain more space does not automatically extend the contained file system unless the option to do so is entered on the command line when making the change.