Freeing some partition space...

[Gustavo Seabra]

James Wilkinson wrote:

>Gustavo Seabra wrote:
>  
>
>>I'm running out of space in the / (root) partition. To free some space, 
>>I want to clean the temporary files in /tmp, but I heard a while ago 
>>that it might break something if done while running a graphical desktop. 
>>How can I clean it then?
>>    
>>
>
>Log out, press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to get to a text screen, log in as root,
>check that the output of mount looks sane.
>  
>
How do I know that? is it just trying to find any mention of /tmp there? 
That's what I get:
/dev/sda3 on / type ext3 (rw)
none on /proc type proc (rw)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
/dev/sda1 on /boot type ext3 (rw)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
/dev/sda2 on /home type ext3 (rw)
none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)

Does that look sane?

>This is important! Some scripts and programs will mount other stuff
>under /tmp (e.g. /tmp/windows). If you're not careful, you can delete
>stuff you don't mean to delete.
>
>Then remove stuff from under /tmp. Try
>
>shopt -s dotglob
>rm -ri /tmp/*
>shopt -u dotglob
>
>Or (possibly safer)
>find /tmp -xdev -ok rm {} \;
>
>When you're happy with what's happening, replace rm -ri with rm -rf (but
>*do* be careful), or -ok with -exec.
>
>Press Alt+F7 to get back to the graphics mode.
>  
>
Thanks a lot. I'll do that.

>  
>
>>Also, I believe someone suggested to clean this area every time the 
>>computer boots. How can I set it up for that?
>>    
>>
>
>Well, my preferred option is to have plenty of swap space and put this
>line in /etc/fstab:
>none       /tmp        tmpfs   defaults        0 0
>Then files held in /tmp will be held in memory or in the swap file (as
>the Linux virtual memory manager sees fit). In either case, when you
>reboot the computer, the contents will be lost.
>
>  
>
>>Does anyone has any suggestions of what else I could clean up to free 
>>some extra space? (I'm using an old computer with just 5G for the root 
>>partition.)
>>    
>>
>
>Old kernels. Old Fedora packaged kernels. Keep a Known Good kernel, your
>current one, and *maybe* one you've just installed until you're happy
>with it. Then get rid of the old current one.
>
>Check root's home directory.
>
>What other partitions do you have? If /var isn't separate, there are a
>lot of things that take up masses of space in /var.
>
>Hope this helps,
>
>James.
>  
>
Also, yes, /var is there. and it is huge! How do I know what can be 
deleted from there?

Thanks again,

-- 
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Gustavo Seabra - Graduate Student
Chemistry Department
Kansas State University
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If at first you don't succeed...
      ...skydiving is not for you.