How to clean up root partition?

[Dag Wieers]

On Tue, 12 Sep 2006, Jeff Boyce wrote:

> I have a Dell PE2600 running RHEL3 fully up to date.  I noticed recently after
> performing some software updates that my root partition is getting full (83%
> used, see below).  I am a novice linux system administrator and am wondering
> what commands could be used to identify the files are located just on this
> partition, and more specifically trying to identify orphaned files/programs
> that are no longer being used that can be removed to free up some space?  I
> recently updated Dell's OMSA software from 4.5 to 5.0 and suspect that some of
> the 4.5 files have been left on the system due to a failure in part of the
> update process.  I also have my up2date system set to enable rollbacks, and
> have retained several of the previous kernel versions on my system following
> updates.  If these types of things are filling that partition, I would like
> suggestions on how safely remove them or clean up the partition.  Thanks.

You may want to look into a tool called filelight. It helps to find big 
directories and files on your filesystem to quickly free space.

	http://dag.wieers.com/packages/filelight/

Also, you can remove the bigger packages you don't use doing:

	rpm -qa --qf '%{size} %{name}\n' | sort -n

For instance, kernels take up some space but you often don't need more 
than two or three.

Development packages may have been installed during a full install, but 
are not needed:

	rpm -qa '*-devel'.

Kind regards,
--   dag wieers,  dag at wieers.com,  http://dag.wieers.com/   --
[all I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power]