--- title: Clean Disk Space in Ubuntu date: 2025-06-25 excerpt: Fix apt install errors caused by no free space in /var/cache/apt/archives by locating the full partition and using a temporary cache path. tags: [Linux, Ubuntu, OS] thumbnail: https://assets.vluv.space/cover/Dev/Linux/clean_disk.webp cover: https://assets.vluv.space/cover/Dev/Linux/clean_disk.webp updated: 2026-07-08 07:44:04 lang: en i18n: cn: /ubuntu_disk_clean translation: 2 --- ## Intro At the beginning of my internship, I applied for an Ubuntu 18 machine. Installing Neovim was inconvenient, so I installed nvim directly with `snap`. Recently, I found that using nvim as a manpager on Ubuntu produced an error, for example: ```shell $ man select cannot fstatat canonical snap directory: Permission denied /usr/bin/man: command exited with status 1: sed -e '/^[[:space:]]$/{ N; /^[[:space:]]\n[[:space:]]*$/D; }' | LESS=-ix8RmPm Manual page select(2) ?ltline %lt?L/%L.:byte %bB?s/%s..?e (END):?pB %pB%.. (press h for help or q to quit)$PM Manual page select(2) ?ltline %lt?L/%L.:byte %bB?s/%s..?e (END):?pB %pB%.. (press h for help or q to quit)$ MAN_PN=select(2) nvim +Man! ``` Roughly speaking, `man` did not have permission to access the snap directory. I had upgraded Ubuntu recently, so I planned to solve this by installing nvim with apt instead. But that led to a new problem: ```shell $ apt-get install neovim Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following NEW packages will be installed: neovim 0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 7 not upgraded. Need to get 37.4 kB of archives. After this operation, 168 kB of additional disk space will be used. E: You don't have enough free space in /var/cache/apt/archives/. ``` I tried several online solutions. Most suggested clearing files under `/var/cache/apt/archives/` or logs under `/var/log/`, but none of them worked. ## Solution First locate the problem. Use the `df` command to check disk usage. It showed that the `/dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv` partition was full, and the files under `/var/cache/apt/archives/` were stored on this partition. ```shell $ df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on udev 16G 0 16G 0% /dev tmpfs 3.2G 307M 2.9G 10% /run /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv 58G 57G 0 100% / tmpfs 16G 0 16G 0% /dev/shm tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock tmpfs 16G 0 16G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup /dev/sda2 974M 213M 694M 24% /boot ... /dev/loop21 13M 13M 0 100% /snap/kubectl/3512 /dev/sdb1 492G 4.2G 462G 1% /mnt/data tmpfs 3.2G 8.0K 3.2G 1% /run/user/0 ``` > [!caution] > > Judging from the path structure, `/mnt/data` is a subdirectory under `/`, but deleting files inside `/mnt/data` will not free space on the `/dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv` partition. > > The reason is that `/mnt/data` and its subdirectories are actually stored on the `/dev/sdb1/` device, not on the original `/` disk space. Once the problem was located, it was easy to handle. I freed 26 GB by running `rm -rf /root/.local/share/Trash`, then successfully installed nvim. See [Where is the .Trash folder? - Ask Ubuntu](https://askubuntu.com/a/102106/2119475) for the trash path. ### Another WorkAround If disk space is extremely tight, you can try the following: ```shell sudo apt -o Dir::Cache::Archives="/dev/shm/" install neovim ``` > [!NOTE] > > The `-o` option temporarily modifies APT configuration. Here, the cache directory is set to `/dev/shm/`, a memory-based temporary filesystem, which avoids the disk space issue. Disabling APT's cache should also work. See [8. Disable the APT cache to save storage space](https://www.doublebastion.com/disable-the-apt-cache-to-save-storage-space/). ## Screenshot After switching to the apt-installed nvim, nvim can be used as a manpager normally. It looks roughly like this: ![neovim man](https://assets.vluv.space/nvim_as_manpager.webp)