It looks like you opted for home directory encryption when installing the OS and somehow it got unmounted. It is also likely that by trying to delete encrypted chunks you have corrupted your home directory, which might explain login not working.
this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2025
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Seems like something I would have done, not being that knowledgeable - encryption = good.
But I didnt sucessfully delete anything. The one file was showing way bigger than any other and there should have been hundreds of gigs free.
Makes sense though, thank you.
0 bytes free might be causing this, many things won't work because they want to write something to disk. If logging in doesn't work using the graphical interface, can you log in using a terminal? You can get to one by pressing crtl + alt + f1 on the login screen. If that works, you can try deleting some files and see if you can log in as usual again after rebooting.
These were my thoughts, lack of space but it should have hundreds free. I have a 500gb home drive and a separate tb for files.
No idea what process would have created enough info to fill the home drive without an internet correction.
If you can log in somehow and it manages to mount your encrypted home, you can investigate what files are using the disk space.
I wiped it, clean install...then I fucked around with gnome and now I regret things.
I didnt encrypt home this time around. This is a trial interaction for me and that is unnecessary complication.
If there's nothing precious, wipe it.
Yeah, its my frst dip into linux bit apprehensive to to start over...cant even rememer what I installed.
Would you recommend not encrypting home?
Encrypting home is good (although full disk encryption is better and with mint it's still easy enough)
Mint uses some helper scripts to mount/unmount your encfs, so maybe while trying to delete the files you deleted those too, and this would explain the login failing. It's been a while tho so I'm not sure, better to wait for someone else.
I wiped it, coincidentally I also wiped the negligible amount of linux knowledge I had from my brain... restarting the process. I might write what I do down, preferences and software etc.
I encrypt the whole disk.