Joe,
I would recommend running a couple simple cleanups to get some space back for now.
Keep in mind this will be a temporary fix; you will run out of space again fairly quickly if you cannot remove some programs or otherwise permanently clear some space on the root partition.
Empty the trash/recycle folder
Remove old kernel versions (I recommend keeping the most recent two)
Remove less commonly used fonts
sudo apt purge "fonts-kacst*" "fonts-khmeros*" fonts-lklug-sinhala fonts-guru-extra "fonts-nanum*" fonts-noto-cjk "fonts-takao*" fonts-tibetan-machine fonts-lao fonts-sil-padauk fonts-sil-abyssinica "fonts-tlwg-*" "fonts-lohit-*" fonts-beng-extra fonts-gargi fonts-gubbi fonts-gujr-extra fonts-kalapi "fonts-samyak*" fonts-navilu fonts-nakula fonts-orya-extra fonts-pagul fonts-sarai "fonts-telu*" "fonts-wqy*" "fonts-smc*" fonts-deva-extra fonts-sahadeva
Remove unnecessary apt files and unnecessary library dependencies
sudo apt-get clean # this will gain a good amount of space, but it will fill back up with the next apt update or apt upgrade
sudo apt-get autoremove --purge # this will remove packages leftover from other programs and no longer needed, --purge just makes sure the related configs and help files are also removed, cleaning up space in /usr/share and /usr/local/share
Check logs in /var/log, if there are some very large files (or a large number) that are compressed (old logs are typically compressed automatically), you might consider moving those to an archive folder in /home where you have plenty of space. I don't recommend removing old logs arbitrarily.
Look at /tmp, /var/crash, /var/spool, /var/cache, etc... See if there are large files you can move to a folder in /home or (/var/cache) remove.
sudo du -ms /var/* | sort -n # This will list folders in increasing size order, the largest at the bottom are good candidates to clean up, size is in megabytes, so anything over 500 is a good place to see if you can clean up.
Look at what you have installed (something like Synaptic helps here) and see if you can remove rarely used, but large, applications (use apt purge to remove them, so the config and support files are removed as well)
The typical Mint install includes a lot of software, some of that may be things you never use. Try to find large applications (things like Evolution, or Banshee) that you do not use, and remove those.
As others have mentioned, you need a larger root partition eventually, but the steps above should help you clear enough space temporarily to limp along until you can accomplish a more permanent fix.
Hopefully that helps you get to a more stable state.
==Joseph++
P.S.
This isn't relevant to Linux Mint 17, but is relevant to newer systems:
Note that /var/log/journal often has a very large amount of old logs in modern systems. This is the systemd journal, and has it's own commands for cleanup:
sudo journalctl --disk-usage # Show how much space the journal logs take up, in one of my systems this is over 6G.
sudo journalctl --rotate --vacuum-time=4weeks # rotate the journal files, and remove any older than 4 weeks; this will typically clear around 2-4G of space on systems that have been running a long time.
Note that you can also configure journald to rotate and remove old logs automatically, this is configured in /etc/systemd/journald.conf. I recommend reading the relevant documentation before making changes there.
On 2021-03-13 02:23 PM, joe--- via PLUG-discuss wrote:
> Thanks Michael.
>
> Yes, I do realize that I probably need to build a
> completely different system, but for now, I just
> have to find ways to keep my old system working.
>
> Now, after a reboot, I have most everything working
> again, but for now, I mainly just need to find out
> how to unlock Libre Office documents.
>
>
> ------------------
> On 2021-03-13 at 1:58 pm, Michael Butash via PLUG-discuss wrote:
>> This is why I stopped using physical partitions and LVM instead
>> entirely.
>>
>> If you fill your physical partition, it really doesn't like it, and
>> all hell breaks loose, as you see. Boot from a boot cd, clear some
>> space, and reboot.
>>
>> Start with "sudo du -h --max-depth=1", figure out what is filling your
>> disk, and delete some. Reboot. Usually logs, updates, packages, etc
>> cruft - kill it all.
>>
>> When it's sane, move to a more agreeable FS structure, use LVM, I can
>> fill a disk and stay up, much less impact if/when this occurs.
>>
>> I break /var and /var/log into separate partitions always, these are
>> typically what fill and break. Keep them separate with LVM's, much
>> happier to recover if any one fills up. I normally keep /usr with
>> debians separate too, but arch installs hate this. Also I keep /home
>> separate, as I fill this commonly, which breaks anything running in
>> userland if/when occurring.
>>
>> Funny, I do this because this is how we installed solaris this way
>> with slices like +20-some years ago to not blow up, but
>> over-simplification these days ignores fun facts like these.
>>
>> -mb
>>
>> On Sat, Mar 13, 2021 at 12:57 PM joe--- via PLUG-discuss
>> <plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Yesterday, I did another update on my Linux Mint 17 system
>>> and today numerous things that previously worked fine
>>> no longer work, including Libre Office.
>>>
>>> And, I now see that all the space on sda1 is filled
>>> so I have zero space available.
>>>
>>> Also, I tried to download a pdf file which should have
>>> gone to sda6 and I got a message "No space available."
>>>
>>> What can I do to remedy this nightmare?
>>>
>>> I am willing to pay for help if one of my PLUG
>>> friends would be willing to help me fix this.
>>>
>>> Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
>>> udev 4006644 4 4006640 1% /dev
>>> tmpfs 805480 1560 803920 1% /run
>>> /dev/sda1 19091584 18141912 0 100% /
>>> none 4 0 4 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
>>> none 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock
>>> none 4027392 25920 4001472 1% /run/shm
>>> none 102400 20 102380 1% /run/user
>>> /dev/sda6 101787928 33524948 63069256 35% /home
>>>
>>> ---------------------------------------------------
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