DON’T UPDATE IF THERE’S NOT MUCH DISK SPACE LEFT. I remember reading this in some other post in the forum, but I can’t seem to find it. It was not this one (which is great too).
How much is not much? No idea. I just know that if you haven’t updated in a month, the update will download more than 1,5 GB in packages, and it will need even more space to install them.
Don’t mindlessly rely on BTRFS snapshots (created with TimeShift). You can easily use them to go to a previous system state, but it may not solve your issue or you may end up with some new issues to solve.
Work-Linux balance: If your main system fails and you have a backup laptop, don’t try to work while fixing the main system. Just focus on work until you can save some time to sit and focus on fixing your system.
Some basic terminal skills I had to look up:
Getting to the terminal if the GUI is not loading:
Press eat the Grub screen.
Add a 3 at the end of the line that starts with linux.
Writing the journalctl output to a file in the current folder
journalctl (options) > filename.txt
Mounting a usb drive so you can copy the log and study it in another computer. I used this answer.
Plug the USB drive in. Seriously, I skipped this step once.
Use lsblk and fdisk -l to identify your USB drive.
The first command gives you a simple outline of available devices, the second command gives you more info (like disk size) which can be useful for identifying a drive. Use any or both of them in any order.
mkdir (mount poing, e. g. /mnt/usbdrive)
This step is almost never writen in the guides, but if I don’t do it, I always get a missing folder error when mounting. I’m probably doing something wrong here.
sudo mount (external drive or partition e. g. /dev/sdc1) (mount point, e. g. /mnt/usbdrive)
If you grow bad feelings against Linux for all this you didn’t want in your life, remember that on Windows your only option would be wiping and reinstalling, or hiring a tech support that would wipe and reinstall for you. So this is just you taking advantage of the possibility Linux gives you to fix your system. If you’re not up for it, you know… wipe and reinstall.
