Questions tagged [filesystem]
The general filesystem in Ubuntu is arranged in a single tree with everything under /. This tag should be used for questions dealing with Ubuntu's layout of files, permissions, and files that reside in special locations on disk. Questions related to a particular filesystem should instead use the specific tag for that (for instance: ext4, btrfs, zfs).
2,858
questions
1173
votes
14
answers
1.8m
views
How do I determine the total size of a directory (folder) from the command line?
Is there a simple command to display the total aggregate size (disk usage) of all files in a directory (folder)?
I have tried these, and they don't do what I want:
ls -l, which only displays the ...
- 11.8k
646
votes
24
answers
756k
views
How do I free up more space in /boot?
My /boot partition is nearly full and I get a warning every time I reboot my system. I already deleted old kernel packages (linux-headers...), actually I did that to install a newer kernel version ...
- 6,735
486
votes
2
answers
386k
views
Differences between /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, /usr/sbin, /usr/local/bin, /usr/local/sbin
I have six directories with command files. These are /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, /usr/sbin, /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/sbin.
What are the differences between these? If I'm writing my own scripts, where ...
user125111
454
votes
3
answers
378k
views
Mount error: "unknown filesystem type 'exfat'"
When trying to mount an exfat filesystem, I get the following error:
Error mounting /dev/sda6 at /media/gkp/Backup: Command-line
`mount -t "exfat" -o "uhelper=udisks2,nodev,nosuid" "/dev/sda6" "/...
- 4,549
395
votes
8
answers
534k
views
How is the /tmp directory cleaned up?
How is the /tmp directory cleaned up? Is it automatic? If so, how frequently is it cleaned up?
- 59.1k
388
votes
7
answers
981k
views
fsck error on boot: /dev/sda6: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY
I dual boot Ubuntu and Windows 7.
I was browsing on FireFox in Ubuntu and all of a sudden I get some error message, so I rebooted.
Now when I try to boot into Ubuntu I get this message:
fsck from ...
- 3,981
337
votes
11
answers
1.3m
views
How do I view all available HDD's/partitions?
I found a 6 GB IDE HDD in my basement. I want to plug it in and see what might be on it. The drive seems to be recognized in BIOS.
I can't find it in Ubuntu to view files, and Ubuntu is the only OS ...
- 3,661
307
votes
18
answers
581k
views
How can I securely erase a hard drive?
I'm planning on selling a USB external hard drive that currently contains an old Ubuntu installation with stored passwords and banking information.
How can I securely erase the drive before selling ...
- 77.2k
260
votes
6
answers
160k
views
How to understand the Ubuntu file system layout?
In Windows there’re perhaps only a couple of important folders (by important I mean important in my logical picture of the Windows file system) in the installation drive (in my case C:\). Namely ...
- 2,909
256
votes
3
answers
203k
views
What is the difference between /etc/init/ and /etc/init.d/?
What is the difference between /etc/init/ and /etc/init.d/?
More generally, what meaning does the .d suffix convey to a directory?
- 59.1k
237
votes
6
answers
1.7m
views
How do I remount a filesystem as read/write?
I'm trying to mount an hfsplus filesystem in a Xubuntu 12.04 VM (kernel version 3.2.0-23-generic) but when I type mount -o remount,rw /dev/sdb3 in command line it returns not mounted or bad option. ...
- 2,687
233
votes
10
answers
543k
views
What is the Linux equivalent to Windows' Program Files?
Under Windows, most applications and application data are stored in a special directory known as C:\Program Files (and occasionally C:\Program Files (x86)). What is the Ubuntu/Linux equivalent to this ...
user11154
225
votes
20
answers
1.3m
views
How to fix "sudo: unable to open ... Read-only file system"?
The title might not be as descriptive as I would like it to be but couldn't come up with a better one.
My server's file system went into Read-only. And I don't understand why it does so and how to ...
- 2,423
217
votes
6
answers
330k
views
Why are hard links not allowed for directories?
I am using Ubuntu 12.04. When I try to create a hard link for any directory, it fails. I can create hard links for files inside file system boundary. I know the reason why we cannot create hardlinks ...
- 3,743
206
votes
3
answers
231k
views
Whats the .local folder for in my Home Directory
What is the ~/.local folder good for and is it safe to remove the content within this folder?
- 2,665
177
votes
5
answers
337k
views
How to get a drive formatted with exfat working?
In Ubuntu 13.04 there was an option to use the PPA by Relan in order to get ExFat functionality. Seeing that in Ubuntu this functionality is now available from the repositories without the PPA I tried ...
- 7,077
163
votes
1
answer
134k
views
What is the rationale for the `/usr` directory?
What is the rationale for the "unix system resources", or /usr directory, as described here, which duplicates many of the directory names under the root directory /?
My purpose: I'm installing Oracle ...
- 9,771
159
votes
12
answers
160k
views
How to find (and delete) duplicate files
I have a largish music collection and there are some duplicates in there. Is there any way to find duplicate files. At a minimum by doing a hash and seeing if two files have the same hash.
Bonus ...
- 19.3k
158
votes
5
answers
122k
views
Why have both /mnt and /media?
It seems to me that having both /mnt and /media is a little redundant. Is there any tangible difference between the two that I'm not aware of?
Is there a standard that most people follow for where to ...
- 3,826
151
votes
7
answers
1.3m
views
How to make read-only file system writable?
At some point, the filesystem on my digital audio player has become read-only. I cannot copy files into it or remove files on it.
Are there some possible reasons for the player's file system to ...
- 25.4k
119
votes
2
answers
204k
views
How can I use RAM storage for the /tmp directory and how to set a maximum amount of RAM usage for it?
After seeing the comment by Anonymous on the question How is the /tmp directory cleaned up?, I found that it would be a great idea to implement on my system, since I have 16GB of RAM and I never used ...
- 13.2k
115
votes
5
answers
78k
views
114
votes
3
answers
282k
views
How do I change file system in recovery mode to read-write mode?
I have messed up my sudoers file and I want to change the permission on it.
When I login in recovery mode, I cannot run the command chmod as it is read-only option.
I tried mount -o remount,rw / in ...
- 1,141
104
votes
11
answers
116k
views
"physical block size is 2048 bytes, but Linux says it is 512" when formatting USB - How to create a bootable USB without this error
I was using:
dd if=/path/to/my/ubuntuiso/ubuntu.iso of=/dev/sdb1 bs=4M && sync
In order to create bootable Ubuntu USB drives on older Ubuntu versions. It was working perfectly. ...
- 9,936
95
votes
6
answers
113k
views
How to open Nautilus at current command line directory?
I was wondering if anybody knew a command that would allow me to open a Nautilus (if that's the right name for the Ubuntu graphic/window explorer) window from the command line at the current directory ...
- 1,785
92
votes
6
answers
100k
views
How is 'rm -rf /' able to delete all files in the system?
I haven't tried this command on Ubuntu (for obvious reasons) so I am not sure if Ubuntu will allow its execution. But it's famous for deleting everything. Just out of curiosity, what happens when the ...
- 1,023
91
votes
3
answers
254k
views
Too many open files - how to find the culprit
When running tail -f filename, I got the following message:
tail: inotify cannot be used, reverting to polling: Too many open files
Is that a potential problem?
How do I diagnose what's responsible ...
- 1,314
88
votes
6
answers
131k
views
How do I find the creation time of a file?
I need to find the creation time of a file, when I read some articles about this issue, all mentioned that there is no solution (like Site1, Site2).
When I tried the stat command, it states Birth: -...
- 38.2k
87
votes
2
answers
121k
views
Is it worth to tune Ext4 with noatime?
With previous versions of Ubuntu (using Ext3 filesystem) I used to tune it for better performance with noticeable results by setting the noatime parameter in /etc/fstab.
Is it still worth it to do ...
- 7,966
85
votes
5
answers
183k
views
How do I find out what filesystem my partitions are using?
Is there a way to find out what file system my partitions are using?
- 951
84
votes
3
answers
93k
views
Use of /opt and /usr/local directories in the context of a PC
What is the difference between /opt and /usr/local directories and what kind of programs should be installed to them?
I referred to Linux File-system Hierarchy but the explanation is not that clear.
...
- 1,178
81
votes
4
answers
74k
views
Can I disable updatedb.mlocate?
On ubuntu server here and I'm trying to unpack 300M image files from a compressed file format using Java.
My unpack rate is 0.5Mbytes/sec, abysmal (34 days to unpack 1.5TB at this rate).
I'm trying ...
- 2,536
81
votes
1
answer
131k
views
How to unmount after using mount --bind option?
I have mounted a hard disk /dev/sda1 on /media/backup. Further, I have issued the following command:
mkdir /home/users/Desktop/backup
sudo mount --bind /media/backup /home/users/Desktop/backup
This ...
- 1,659
80
votes
7
answers
312k
views
What do I do when my root filesystem is full?
My / folder is reading as full and I can't update software or do anything.
Not sure what I'm doing wrong here.
$ df -h
Results:
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 ...
- 915
79
votes
6
answers
90k
views
How folders created in /var/run on each reboot
In recent ubuntus (specifically, what interests me the most is 12.04) /var/run is tmpfs, and thus I assume it starts empty with each reboot.
Yet, I see there some folders, like /var/run/mysqld and ...
- 1,197
77
votes
8
answers
17k
views
Does Ubuntu damage USB drives?
Whenever I unmount a USB drive with Nautilus and plug it to a Windows machine, I receive a warning that the drive needs to be repaired.
(the same message like in this screenshot)
For 10+ years ...
- 787
74
votes
1
answer
62k
views
What is the role of the .ICEauthority file?
When I listed files in my home directory, there was a hidden file named .ICEauthority.
What is this file, and what is its role?
user262235
73
votes
4
answers
203k
views
Very large log files, what should I do?
(This question deals with a similar issue, but it talks about a rotated log file.)
Today I got a system message regarding very low /var space.
As usual I executed the commands in the line of sudo ...
- 3,153
72
votes
5
answers
32k
views
Why has /var/run been migrated to /run?
From the technical overview of Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric:
Ubuntu 11.10 has migrated away from /var/run, /var/lock and /dev/shm and now uses /run, /run/lock and /run/shm instead (respectively).
I ...
- 175k
71
votes
1
answer
195k
views
What is the .Xauthority file?
I had a problem wherein I couldn't get past the login screen in Ubuntu 12.04. Even though I gave the correct username and password, it still came back to the login screen. I found a solution wherein I ...
- 1,053
69
votes
5
answers
162k
views
How do I use OverlayFS?
This answer and email message indicate that something called "OverlayFS" is available in Ubuntu 11.10 and will forcefully replace aufs in Ubuntu 12.04.
How do I use it? Where is its documentation?
- 77.2k
67
votes
9
answers
198k
views
How to create folder shortcut in Ubuntu 14.04?
I have a folder in my Dropbox and I want to add a shortcut of that folder on my Desktop. I guess this should be extremely easy as in Windows OS :) However, I have no idea how to do it in Ubuntu 14.04.
...
- 1,407
66
votes
8
answers
610k
views
"No root file system defined" error while installing ubuntu
I am new to linux/ ubuntu and just downloaded the v11 of ubuntu to learn linux. I faced this "No root file system is defined" error while trying to install it. This is how I was proceeding -
...
- 779
65
votes
2
answers
161k
views
How do I install and mount an exFAT partition? [duplicate]
I have searched around here and with Google, and none of the instructions I have found work with Oneric.
How do install exFAT and mount an exFAT partition in the latest release of Kubuntu?
- 1,033
64
votes
11
answers
140k
views
Command line option to check which filesystem I am using?
Is there a command that will show which file system (ext3, ext4, FAT32, ...) the various partitions and disks are using?
Similar to how sudo fdisk -l lists information about disks and partitions?
- 5,588
64
votes
7
answers
641k
views
How to Fix "Read-only file system" error when I run something as sudo and try to make a folder/file?
When I try to save something or rename a file/folder it say this error " Read-only file system" or run something as root in the terminal it say this error
sudo: unable to open /var/lib/sudo/"My User ...
- 5,674
63
votes
8
answers
307k
views
Where can I find the location of folders for installed programs?
I'm new to Ubuntu and would like to know where I can find the location of program files for programs installed from the Ubuntu Software Center or the Terminal.
- 12.1k
62
votes
4
answers
78k
views
How do I avoid the "S to Skip" message on boot?
After upgrading my laptop from karmic to lucid, my fat32 partition won't mount automatically. I get the message:
The disk drive for /osshare is not ready yet or not present
Continue to wait; or Press ...
- 2,125
60
votes
5
answers
15k
views
Accidentally created directory named "~" (tilde)
I managed to make a directory literally named ~.
(Apparently, Python's os.mkdir('~/something') does this.)
How do I remove it without nuking my home?
Also, if it helps, I have my real /home on a ...
user423626
60
votes
3
answers
234k
views
Where does Wine install apps in filesystem?
In Windows, applications are installed into Program Files folder by default. I have recently installed MS Office using Wine.
Where are apps installed with Wine? Can I decide in which folder should ...
- 691