The most important thing to realize about the “file system” in Linux is it does a lot more than just persist your documents and app data. You shouldn’t index your root directory because almost everything other than your home directory is some kind of Linux distro/application-specific directory that is often not a normal directory stored on a storage device. If you run the mount command with no arguments, every line of output is a separate file system, mounted at some specific directory of the current “mount namespace”. Kinda confusing, but every process in Linux has a mount namespace that has a list of mounted file systems, often that namespace is shared between many/most processes, such as your terminal shell. Most of the file systems will be virtual i.e. not representing anything in storage. For example sysfs (always mounted at /sys), proc (always mounted at /proc), devtmpfs (mounted at /dev), etc. are all completely virtual and are ways for system services and applications to access state and devices exposed by the Linux kernel. They should never be indexed, treated as normal files, or modified by the user.
That’s probably even more confusing, sorry. But the gist of it is, the only directory on your system you can really count on actually being stored on disk and always available to you is your home directory. Basically everything else exists as an implementation detail of the operating system and software applications.
If I were you, I’d stick to only indexing your user home directory. Indexing /usr or /tmp or /etc or whatever is like indexing C:\Windows and C:\Program Files, except even weirder since at least on Windows those are actually files stored on disk whereas in Linux they may not even be actual files (although most of them in /usr and /etc are actual files on disk).
There is a simple trick, as a basic user, do not ever run your (gnome) file explorer as root and if a permission error (requiring “escalation”) pops up you shoud double check what you are doing.
I think most graphical f.mangers also keep most of the weird/important/system folders away from user and you have to directly navigate to them.
You may also encounter some contradictory information out there too. For example, I said don’t modify stuff outside of your user home directory, but some people will advise to modify stuff in /etc. Although I would never do this on a desktop distro (usually /etc is set up the way the distro maintainers want it, and anything you need to modify will have another more user-friendly way to modify it), especially one where you’re mostly just trying to run desktop applications. It might make sense to modify stuff in /etc on a server installation since that’s where a lot of configuration for different daemon processes (i.e. system services but also server applications) and even software libraries goes.
That’s one of the good and bad things about linux. There is some information about all this stuff on the internet if you can find it, but it is also an information overload and you’re basically learning about the internals of the operating system with all the associated complexity. That’s one thing that threw me off about linux initially (I started getting into this stuff only a couple years ago), almost everything you learn about linux is basically an implementation detail. There are Windows equivalents to most things in linux, but when you use Windows as a desktop user you don’t really think about them unless you’re developing an application using Windows-specific APIs.
Windows has things like COM (linux equivalent is gobject and dbus), Services (linux equivalent is systemd services), Win32 API (this is a million things in Linux like glibc and a bunch of other system libraries, just check out how many files are in /usr/lib or /usr/lib64), Registry (dconf/gsettings) and so on.
There’s also unfortunately no real clean break between “stuff anyone should know” and “stuff programmers and linux distro developers should know”. A lot messier than something like iOS or Android where if you’re a normal user you basically don’t see the OS implementation or hints of it at all.
Trying to hide the implementation details is also why the GNOME Files app shows you some documents folders on the left but makes it more difficult to view the root directory or even the current file path. Which was very frustrating and confusing for me, coming from Windows.
You’re using flatpak, right? Flatpak uses “portals” to provide access to other parts of your system. When you open files in flatpak apps, you’ll see this folder used for those.
These shouldn’t actually take up any meaningful space, and I wouldn’t delete anything unless you’re experiencing an issue.
It is most likely another filesystem mounted where the flatpak can see it. A terminal tool like ncdu or even du will take an -x option to not cross file-system boundaries. That will show the true usage of everything bellow where you call it (even though it is a ramfs so not persisted across reboots).
/etc - Et cetera. The name is inherited from the earliest Unixes, which is when it became the spot to put config-files.
/home - Where home directories are kept.
/lib - Where code libraries are kept.
/media - A more modern directory, but where removable media gets mounted.
/mnt - Where temporary file-systems are mounted.
/opt - Where optional add-on software is installed. This is discrete from /usr/local/ for reasons I’ll get to later.
/run - Where runtime variable data is kept.
/sbin - Where super-binaries are stored. These usually only work with root.
/srv - Stands for “serve”. This directory is intended for static files that are served out. /srv/http would be for static websites, /srv/ftp for an FTP server.
/tmp - Where temporary files may be stored.
/usr - Another directory inherited from the Unixes of old, it stands for “UNIX System Resources”. It does not stand for “user” (see the Debian Wiki). This directory should be sharable between hosts, and can be NFS mounted to multiple hosts safely. It can be mounted read-only safely.
/var - Another directory inherited from the Unixes of old, it stands for “variable”. This is where system data that varies may be stored. Such things as spool and cache directories may be located here. If a program needs to write to the local file-system and isn’t serving that data to someone directly, it’ll go here.
Don’t delete it. It’s an area of the filesystem where the current user session data is kept. This includes things like sockets to communicate with other session components and lock files. It’s usually hosted on a ram disk so takes up no space in the system and goes away when you shutdown your machine.
Files in /run will be (re)created (and removed) at runtime if/when needed by programs that need them. They pose no problems and don’t persist between reboots.
That duplicate of your folder in /run is due to filesystem links (or more likely a fuse mount, I’ve never actually looked into how flatpak works). But either way, they aren’t copies of the data.
Last year GamersNexus covered something similar. Can’t remember the exact video, but I think it was in the series of videos this one comes from m.youtube.com/watch?v=fFNi3YNJXbY&t=0s.
Can’t remember all the details, but (I think) something was causing a part of the die (I guess not near a temp sensor) to heat up way out of spec, enough to litterally melt the solder on the CPU, and have it drain out.
CPU is likely dead, and certainly not to be trusted. Is it an Asus or gigabyte motherboard? Potentially it’s one that’s affected and hasn’t had the bios update that fixes the issue applied
I would suggest not trying to use it anymore though, and just go straight to the RMA process for wherever they were purchased. Or maybe post on the GN discord to see what they say (annoyingly they don’t have forums or anything, just a discord and subreddit).
If this is just something that’s come from somewhere else, you don’t know where else this mysterious metal may have gone, and there’s a potential fire risk on your hands at worst, or a mobo that could fry any cpus (or memory, etc) plugged in.
If it’s indeed the issue talked about by GN, it’s dead, and if it’s not completely dead, it’s actively dying in an irreversible way.
If it’s some other, new issue, I still can’t imagine plugging it back in will make anything better.
Yes it would. That’s exactly how solder would bahave in this case. The fact that you call what is obviously solder… “something”… means you don’t know what you’re talking about.
The photo is almost identical to one shown in one of the GN videos. Gonna be a bad internet denizen today though and ask that you take my word, because I really can’t be arsed to try to look up specific videos and times.
If you don’t take my word, thats completely understandable, but as I said, cannot be arsed with looking it up, so I’ll just accept that you don’t believe me.
That’s fair. Though I still do believe you since everything you said seems completely plausible. I’m skimming through GN’s videos right now, but there are loooooads. Hopefully I’ll find it eventually, because I really am curious. In any case, my friend and I decided to start the RMA process as suggested in your other comment, because if nothing else, the CPU looks really dodgy. Thank you for your time and insight!
It could actually, the Heat spreader is usually bonded to the Chip with some form of Indium Solder, which usually has a melting point of up to 210°C (most compositions are around 120-140°C).
Solder likes to form a similar ball around traces and components, since the solder does not stick to the silk screen of the PCB.
And I remember that this is exactly what happened in the Gamer Nexus video, the Indium Solder was melting due to Overheating.
So based on the other comments, I would check the cooler and anything else that was above the CPU to see if something got too hot and dribbled solder on the CPU. Also is the socket next to that drop clean, or are there other smaller droplets nearby?
Everything on the cooler and motherboard seems to be clean. No droplets around the socket either. We’ve decided to start the RMA process, because troubleshooting a CPU is a bit out of my wheelhouse and also I’m kinda lazy. Thank you, though!
Looks like solder. Soldering irons are pretty cheap. You could try getting a cheap one and melting it off; but if you’ve never soldered before I’d recommend watching some videos on how to handle it so you don’t just make things worse.
Considering it looks like a blob of metal it could be a type of thermal interface compound that gets spread on the cpu before installing a heat sink. Something like cryonaut liquid metal, I dont believe it ever solidifies.
I mean unless your friend bought the CPU used and got scammed, or they were somehow soldering something above their CPU while building the PC I don’t see how else this could’ve happened outside the factory.
It looks to me like maybe extra solder got squeezed out during the heatspreader or surface mount component soldering process.
Nah, he doesn’t own a soldering iron. So, it’s safe to say that I shouldn’t put this back in the motherboard, yeah? It still does fit in the socket, but I’m worried it’ll cause more damage when we turn on the PC.
Wow, that reply was super fast. That was my first thought, but my friend doesn’t know how to solder and doesn’t own a soldering iron. Is it possible it was like this from the factory?
Was it new or brought used? Either way probably not the best for it so maybe get your friend to return it (unless they lied and did it themselves, haha)
New. He bought it last summer in August, so it should still be under warranty. Yeah, my thoughts exactly. I’ve never seen this, so I kind of don’t want to put it back in the motherboard for fear of causing further damage.
That is sooo weird. Unless that thing shorted and heated up so much that it melted the solder, in this case I’m not sure there’s any extra harm in putting it back in the socket. I usually wouldn’t advise this but if it was gonna cause damage it’s probably already done.
At this point I think there is a definite possibility that this solder blob has always been there and that we may be barking up the wrong tree.
Unless that thing shorted and heated up so much that it melted the solder, in this case I’m not sure there’s any extra harm in putting it back in the socket. I usually wouldn’t advise this but if it was gonna cause extra damage it’s probably already done.
Fair point. I’m probably not going to experiment too much. I was just curious about the silver blob, because I’ve never seen this before. If I can’t find any obvious faults, I’ll just advise my friend to take his PC to a repair shop or something.
Alright, well if you want you can let me know what actually happens when you push the power button. Any beeps, lights, fan spins, clicking, demonic apparitions, just completely dead, etc.
Sometimes just reseating everything is the fix too.
Unfortunately nothing changed even after reassembling the PC. We’re just going to take it to a local PC shop since they have more tools on hand to diagnose the problem. Thanks for your help, though!
Yeah figures. As another user mentioned, this could very well be the issue that Gamers Nexus exposed a while back. That CPU might still be under warranty. Hopefully the PC shop will be able to sort this out for you.
Hmm I had something different in mind. More along the lines of getting freaky with demons but hey inhaling the magic blue smoke is 100% valid too. I’m down.
With a bit there the cooler probably isn’t making good contact with the CPU, but if that was the case I wouldn’t expect it to just die if it was working before. Though the higher heat may have caused permanent issues too, hard to say.
I have an all in one CPU liquid cooler that had a bracket on incorrectly but it still worked fine until I played with overclocking so that’s all I base this comment on.
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