On Fri, Aug 15, 2025 at 7:12 PM R. Clayton <facto...@rclayton.org> wrote:
> Crystal Kolipe <kolip...@exoticsilicon.com> writes:
>
> > Files which are held open but unlinked in the filesystem will not be seen
> > with du, but will still count as used space in the output of df.
>
> Thanks for your reply. This seems an obscure problem to have immediately
> after
> upgrading the system. I've looked at / using fstat and haven't found
> anything
> incriminating, but maybe fstat has the same difficulties du has (a small
> test
> suggests it doesn't, but who knows?).
>
> The real question is: how do I fix / so I can update packages (short of
> installing a fresh 7.7)?
>
Immediately after a reboot, you shouldn't have a lot of space used by
unlinked
open files. So something unusual is going on.
It's possible that space is being used in the root file system by files you
can't
see, because other mounted file systems are hiding those directories. Try
booting the system single-user ("boot -s" at the boot> prompt), then check
to see if all your mount points are empty directories (/home, /tmp, etc.).
For example, if at some time in the past you had put a big file in /tmp
while
/tmp was part of the root file system (i.e. the /tmp file system wasn't
mounted)
then the space will be used but you won't see it with /tmp mounted on top
of it.
-ken
