Another curiosity of my situation is that when this initially occurred, by desktop and folder preferences were all as normal. The only difference was that the folder panel showed Documents, Pictures, Music, Video... etc, with red x. And when I clicked, it said those locations were not available.

In addition, the Trash was still full. In fact there was some salvageable files there. Now, however, perhaps after a reboot, the Trash is empty. I definitely did not empty the Trash.

Yep, that's what the Red 'X' means - whatever the icon points to is now corrupt or missing.


Re Trash; it may be in a cfg setting, but I would never use/trust Trash, if my system even has that (not in front of it right now).
Just make backups regularly and assume(!) trash will be emptied during a reboot ...
If it's not, it'll eventually fill the disk ...


As you've discovered, deleting stuff needs to be planned carefully.
You can usually delete oldest log files under /var/log/... , but still research each one first.

Does anyone know why Nemo now shows a small Terminal window at the top ?

Attached Thumbnails

 

What should I enter at the Filename Encryption Key (FNEK) Signature [mykey
]:

1 I don't see FNEK in that screenshot...

2 Purging logfiles :

Using a gui is tricky because each app has its own rules and you'd need a someone who knows that specific tool..
(I don't use gui apps for this)

Can I (highly) recommend you just open up a std terminal session, where the cmds are more universal?

Quick n dirty / temp soln is to cd into /var/log (as root/sudo) and remove some of the oldest dirs/files. eg if you have 5 'alternatives.X.log' entries, I'd del the oldest 3, keeping the newest 2.
You can check the dates with 'll' but the ones with the lowest nums (8, 9, 10) would normally be the oldest.
Rinse and repeat for others.

HOWEVER, the best soln is to edit (as root) the log rotation cfgs in /etc/logrotate.d/ and have the system keep it under control for you, or you'll be back in this same position, eventually.

As an example
HTH

Hi chrism01.

Thanks for your input. My /var/log doesn't look anything like that.

If that is what was done then the use of may reveal it. Although much less likely for it to be outside of /home it could also be done starting the search from the root ( / ) folder

/var/log is where your logs are - as shown in your GUI screen shot.

The rotation configs are in /etc/logrotate.d as per my prev post.

Yes, I found the var log, but it doesn't look the same.

Also, the 'cat bootlog' code doesn't work for me.

Thanks for the input though.

Surely the files in the filesystem of the live session should match their counterparts in the real session ?

Just open a terminal and
and post the results.
Let's not guess ...

Xorg.0.log cups lightdm ubuntu-system-adjustments-adjust-grub-title.log
auth.log dmesg mintsystem.log ubuntu-system-adjustments-start.log
boot.log gpu-manager.log mintsystem.timestamps wtmp
btmp kern.log private
casper.log lastlog syslog

Note that your post has no formatting.
To show us what things look like on the screen and to make it more readable please consider posting text inside code tags so the data is more easily seen and recognized. It also helps if the actual command is the first line posted.

I added the code tags to your quote above so you might see the difference.

Oh- excellent. Thanks for the tip.

To be honest, I should have noticed the code tag feature.

My mind has been very busy lately and sometimes I struggle to focus on one task.

Thanks again.

RECAP
Okay - here's a rundown on what has happened so far.


1. I wanted to clear up disk space. So I searched for ways to purge old linux packages and software. I didn't want to blindly delete stuff that I felt I didn't need.

2. The last time I deleted stuff, and moved things between partitions, Windows stopped working. Added to that, I have since had to load Linux by entering the following code:
3. A couple of weeks back I tried some commands, which I found on some reputable forums. As far as I can recall I used:

• Code:

  sudo apt-get autoremove

• I manually uninstalled packages using the Software Manager.
  
  
• Code:

  sudo apt-get autoclean

• Code:

  sudo apt-get clean

• Code:

  jounrnalctl --disk-usage

  -(possibly).
  
• Code:

  sudo apt-get purge "*flatpak*"

  -(i think, although I thought it was snap, not flatpak).

4. I executed photorec. Recovered quite a lot of files, many encrypted. Although a lot are website and app elements.

5. I ran Boot Repair in an attempt to regain access to my media.

6. At this point, I believe that my Home folder is a new home folder and not the original one.

6. In an attempt to free up some space for recovery, I move this file: 'crtmpserver', to a memory stick. I put it in a folder called 'RETURN TO media mint 510adab1-194c-4502-80e3-a0a468ca2366 var log', so that I knew where to put it back.

7. At some point I think I renamed the UUID of one of the partitions, so the partition listed above no longer exists.

8. I've tried moving boot files to the first partition.

CONCLUSION

Now I have two issues.

1. Linux won't boot, no matter what I do.
2. I can access the encrypted folders but it:

(a) just gives me access to the new home folder.
(b) when it mounts the encrypted folder at /tmp/xxxxxx, the folder is empty.


Any help and advice would be graciously received.