Delete files/directories from CLI w/ username & password

Alfetta159

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My harddrive got full and now Linux (Zorin 16) won't boot. It tries, but eventually just settles on a black screen.

I try to bring up Grub with either the shift or esc keys, but that goes nowhere.

I can boot from an installation USB drive, but is there a way to delete file from the existing harddrive(s) impersonating myself while running from the USB drives?

No guesses please. Or if you can't help feeling that you need to help even though you have never encountered this or found a solution that you actually used that worked, then at least preface your reply. (And sorry if that hurts your feelings)

If you're wondering how I got into this mess, Insync asked me to log on after its last update, and I failed to notice that it chose a location on my root drive and not the one that I use for user files.
 


Welcome to the forums

By using a live installation medium [any Linux] you will be able to access the machine's hard drive from where you can delete files folders etc, or if you have a second spare usb port you could put a blank pen drive in and transfer them to that,
It is not difficult BUT care should be taken with what you are willing to lose/move and that which you are not
 
Welcome to the forums

By using a live installation medium [any Linux] you will be able to access the machine's hard drive from where you can delete files folders etc, or if you have a second spare usb port you could put a blank pen drive in and transfer them to that,
It is not difficult BUT care should be taken with what you are willing to lose/move and that which you are not
Not this Linux installation : "Permission denied" in the terminal
 
Never know that to happen, I have rescued dozens of machines with different distro's over the years [or did you encrypt your files and folders] that would cause problems

you may need one of these rescue discs
 
@Alfetta159 -- " . . . I can boot from an installation USB drive, but is there a way to delete file from the existing harddrive(s) impersonating myself while running from the USB drives?"

Puppy linux fits on a small USB stick, will boot into your system's RAM only, and can mount any partition it recognizes as root. Older versions will not recognize btrfs. Fossapup is a good current version using ubuntu as base but not its repositories. It's a Linux of its own. But very useful.

One can mount the drive and move (mv) or copy (cp) files to heart's content.

Someone here will have another solution but learning Puppy Linux has its benefits long-term. just a suggestion.
 
Based on @Brickwizard 's suggestion, I went back with my USB installation drive for my Linux distro but this time just tried the sudo keyword in front of my rm command to get rid of the big directory that I didn't want there in the first place. It didn't occur to me to try it that way as I hadn't logged on with an account, but that worked fine.

Perhaps I should have stated that I didn't want these files on that partition as they are all already on another partition on a completely different harddrive in the system and was happy to simply permanently delete them. Again, when insync asked me to log on after its last update, it hadn't occurred to me that it was just going to start all over again using a folder under the home folder when I have been using it for months under that other partition.

thx everyone. I'm happily adding this reply w/ my main linux box.
 
Sorry I will take the blame for that, I am so used to doing thing for myself without thinking, I should have said use supervisor commands
 

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