My friend came over. I downloaded a game on Steam for us to play together on my Linux machine that ended up hitting the storage limit of my Linux computer. I had 8GB left, the game said it would take 7GB. I guess maybe downloading a Proton version killed it? I deleted a bunch of other files and restarted the computer to make it take. Instead I got the distro's emergency mode. I searched online for others with the problem and the answer was basically just to reflash it. So my friend and I found other activities to do, and we enjoyed our visit together.

Now that my friend went home, I decided to fix the computer issue and reinstall. It was pretty easy.

1. Downloaded the ISO from the website
2. Used https://github.com/Kruszoneq/macUSB to get it on a flash drive (my computer that was still working is a Mac)
3. When it finished going on the flashdrive, stick the flashdrive in the broken Linux machine
4. Start the broken Linux machine up again and select to boot from USB
5. Follow install instructions on screen
6. Success!

I can see how Linux might be intimidating for people given that I had that issue at all (but then again I've never filled up storage on any other computer, so maybe Mac and Windows also flip out when that happens), but the reinstall was pretty easy. It Just Works... at least well enough for me to find it easy enough to have ditched Windows.

It's crazy to me that it would download a game which says it's one size and install as a larger size, and subsequently kill the system.

Furthermore, I find it insane that a lack of storage would kill the system at all. The system should keep functioning with no storage at all besides the installed software IMO. Yes, room for logs and such, but logs are not essential to keep the system running, IMO.

Maybe I'm wrong here.

It's basically a tl;dr of what happend from a person who isn't a linux/pc expert, who knows which files he deleted. There might be more to the story than has been told in other words. 😊

I'm thinking this has to be it, right?