Greetings To The GTALUG Community: I'm trying to discover where an overlay filesystem is mapped, for a Debian live boot from a USB stick. After perusing a dog's breakfast of output from various linux commands, I am appealing to GTALUG members for guidance. * * * * * * I boot live Debian 11 linux from a USB memory stick. This provides an overlay filesystem: ... user@debian:~$ df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on udev 7.8G 0 7.8G 0% /dev tmpfs 1.6G 1.6M 1.6G 1% /run /dev/sdb1 3.5G 3.5G 0 100% /run/live/medium /dev/loop0 2.9G 2.9G 0 100% /run/live/rootfs/filesystem.squashfs tmpfs 7.8G 1.6G 6.3G 20% /run/live/overlay overlay 7.8G 1.6G 6.3G 20% / tmpfs 7.8G 0 7.8G 0% /dev/shm tmpfs 5.0M 4.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock tmpfs 7.8G 8.0K 7.8G 1% /tmp tmpfs 1.6G 1.7M 1.6G 1% /run/user/1000 /dev/sdc1 59G 1.7G 57G 3% /media/user/245B-74A8 /dev/sda2 1.8T 767G 958G 45% /media/user/32ec11e8-082c-4ca5-b751-dc2852f9d5e2 user@debian:~$ ... * * * * * * I believe that the overlay filesystem provides the root directory for linux. Files under GNOME shows under Other Locations > Computer a root directory: ... user@debian:/$ ls -aAl total 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Dec 17 2022 bin -> usr/bin drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 144 Dec 17 2022 boot drwxr-xr-x 18 root root 3580 Mar 20 17:58 dev drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 640 Mar 20 14:32 etc drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 60 Mar 20 08:14 home lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 31 Dec 17 2022 initrd.img -> boot/initrd.img-5.10.0-20-amd64 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 31 Dec 17 2022 initrd.img.old -> boot/initrd.img-5.10.0-20-amd64 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Dec 17 2022 lib -> usr/lib lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Dec 17 2022 lib32 -> usr/lib32 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Dec 17 2022 lib64 -> usr/lib64 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Dec 17 2022 libx32 -> usr/libx32 drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 60 Mar 20 08:17 media drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 3 Dec 17 2022 mnt drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 3 Dec 17 2022 opt dr-xr-xr-x 266 root root 0 Mar 20 08:14 proc drwx------ 1 root root 60 Dec 17 2022 root drwxr-xr-x 31 root root 800 Mar 20 08:17 run lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Dec 17 2022 sbin -> usr/sbin drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 3 Dec 17 2022 srv dr-xr-xr-x 13 root root 0 Mar 20 08:14 sys drwxrwxrwt 17 root root 400 Mar 20 18:49 tmp drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 80 Dec 17 2022 usr drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 140 Dec 17 2022 var lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 Dec 17 2022 vmlinuz -> boot/vmlinuz-5.10.0-20-amd64 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 Dec 17 2022 vmlinuz.old -> boot/vmlinuz-5.10.0-20-amd64 user@debian:/$ ... When I right-click on the word Computer in the title bar of the Files window, and select Properties, it shows: ... Name / Type Folder (inode/directory) Contents 297,003 items, totaling 10.9 GB (some contents unreadable) The space allocation graphic shows: 1.7 GB used 6.7 GB available Filesystem type overlay Open in Disks ... * * * * * * I have tried using many linux commands to find out where the overlay filesystem is mapped: ... df -h ls -l /dev/disk/by-id gdisk (/dev/sda) gdisk (/dev/sdb) gdisk (/dev/sdc) cfdisk /dev/sda cfdisk /dev/sda cfdisk /dev/sdc sfdisk -J /dev/sda sfdisk -J /dev/sdb sfdisk -J /dev/sdc user@debian:/$ cd /dev user@debian:/dev$ ls -aAl sfdisk -T --label (dos, gpt) blkid lsblk lsblk parted -l mount sgdisk ... Output from all these commands is in the attached text file: ASP -- commands - looking for overlay filesystem device - 20240320.txt * * * * * * Suggestions from GTALUG members would be greatly appreciated !! Steve Petrie Etobicoke (Toronto), Ontario, Canada apetrie@aspetrie.net 416-233-6116