Linux Mint Bootable USB Drive Low Free Space

[sonicyouth]

I'm currently not able to boot into Windows 8 anymore due to a suspected hard drive failure (HD is no longer found). As an alternative, I've turned to Linux to try and coast by until I get my laptop repaired. I'm running Linux Mint through an 8 GB USB drive, but the File System says there's only 2.6 GB of free space remaining. I have 1 program (Steam) installed outside of what came with Linux Mint. I know Steam isn't that big of a file and I do not have any games installed. I want to install one that's 2688 MB, but Steam says I only have 2473 MB of disk space available. I'm confused, as I thought I had about 8 GB on my USB to support the download. Did I partition the USB wrong? I'm new to Linux, btw.

 

[glamdringfh]

Hi sonicyouth,

It's great that you've got Linux Mint up and running! You're going to run into trouble though trying to install games onto that 8GB USB drive. The operating system is using quite a lot of room from the original 8GB, so that plus steam is not going to leave you with much room.

You can look to see how your drive is partitioned by going to the "System" menu, open the "System Tools" menu and then open the "KDE Partition Manager" program. If it looks like you're using all 8GB of the drive then you're not going to have enough space on that USB stick for gaming.

 

[sonicyouth]

Hi sonicyouth,

It's great that you've got Linux Mint up and running! You're going to run into trouble though trying to install games onto that 8GB USB drive. The operating system is using quite a lot of room from the original 8GB, so that plus steam is not going to leave you with much room.

You can look to see how your drive is partitioned by going to the "System" menu, open the "System Tools" menu and then open the "KDE Partition Manager" program. If it looks like you're using all 8GB of the drive then you're not going to have enough space on that USB stick for gaming.

I couldn't find System Tools or the Partition Manager using search. I did find GParted though and it looks like i'm only using 1.53 GB of space and I have 5.67 GB of unused storage. Yesterday, I was able to run Linux Mint from an older 2 GB USB drive and installed Steam and a small game. Everything ran smoothly. Restarting Linux gets rid of all my downloads and settings, so I know I don't have any games or programs still installed. I thought switching to larger USB would solve the space issue for a new game, but it seems like it's not the case.

I did notice that when running Linux on my 2 GB USB, File System also said I had about 2.6 GB of free space left, which is more than what my drive holds. So I'm thinking that it has nothing to do with USB drive size. Regardless if I use a 2 GB or an 8 GB, it seems like the remaining space in File System is the same.

 

[itmoba]

You need to look at the partition table. In all likelihood, your home folder has its own partition -- this is the one that has little space left and is where game data files (among others) is stored.

 

[sonicyouth]

You need to look at the partition table. In all likelihood, your home folder has its own partition -- this is the one that has little space left and is where game data files (among others) is stored.

Is there anything I can do to change that? Or should I go with another OS?

 

[itmoba]

You can simply reinstall Mint and do a custom setup where you load everything into '/'. This means there'll only be one partition. Thus, you'll be able to use all of the space.

 

[skittle]

Run:
sudo parted -l

To get a partition table

 

[sonicyouth]

You can simply reinstall Mint and do a custom setup where you load everything into '/'. This means there'll only be one partition. Thus, you'll be able to use all of the space.

How would I do this?