[gentoo-user] Reducing disk usage

[gentoo-user] Reducing disk usage

[Grant]

I've found myself with a full hard disk and no obvious choices for
reducing usage.  Are there any not-so-obvious ways to free up hard
disk space?

- Grant
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Re: [gentoo-user] Reducing disk usage

[Uwe Thiem]

On 26 April 2007, Grant wrote:
> I've found myself with a full hard disk and no obvious choices for
> reducing usage.  Are there any not-so-obvious ways to free up hard
> disk space?

Delete all your music. ;-)

Seriously, get another one.

Uwe

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RE: [gentoo-user] Reducing disk usage

[Nelson, David J]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Grant [mailto:emailgrant@gmail.com]
> Sent: 26 April 2007 15:59
> To: Gentoo mailing list
> Subject: [gentoo-user] Reducing disk usage
> 
> 
> I've found myself with a full hard disk and no obvious choices for
> reducing usage.  Are there any not-so-obvious ways to free up hard
> disk space?
> 
> - Grant
> -- 
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
> 
> 

Have a rummage in /usr/portage/distfiles and chuck any that you can.
Also remove old kernel source packages that you dont need? Check in /usr/src/.


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Re: [gentoo-user] Reducing disk usage

[Hemmann, Volker Armin]

On Donnerstag, 26. April 2007, Grant wrote:
> I've found myself with a full hard disk and no obvious choices for
> reducing usage.  Are there any not-so-obvious ways to free up hard
> disk space?
>
> - Grant

localepurge

rm -rf /var/tmp/

using reiserfs

stop using -O3

rm -rf /usr/src/linux*
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Re: [gentoo-user] Reducing disk usage

[W.Kenworthy]

Watch this one!

I ended up with a seriously broken system after running localepurge -
make sure you have your locale sorted out first!  But it can save quite
a lot of space - pity the system was dead in the water ...

reiserfs is more space efficient than other filesystems like ext2/3
(depending on a lot of things ... YMMV)

-O3 - saves peanuts overall

rm -rf /usr/src/linux* - dangerous, lokk in there first and only remove
what you are not using (i.e., leave your current kernel, plus one other
"good" version as a backup - the number of times Ive had to roll
back ... :)

rm -rfv /usr/portage/distfiles - after thinking about if you need to
keep these versions, consider if redownloading them wont be a problem
(or write them out to DVD/CD etc.  There are also a couple of distfile
cleaner programs - see the forums.  If you have another machine, look
into http-replicator - highly recommended.

rm -rfv /var/tmp/portage - this can all go - often cruft like crashed OO
builds end up here - can be huge.

run `du /|sort -rn|less` and see where your biggest files/directories
are and see if they can go.

In real tight situations, NFS can help by
putting /usr/portage/distfiles, /var/tmp/portage, etc on other machines
with more diskspace.  I have found this to be very flakey at times
depending on kernel versions, system loads, etc.  Huge builds like OO
rarely finished without a crash or two in the build process :)

Use the -doc useflag and rebuild - this can save over a GB on a large
systems

there have been a number of threads over the years on saving space -
search the forums.

BillK



BillK

On Thu, 2007-04-26 at 17:38 +0200, Hemmann, Volker Armin wrote:
> On Donnerstag, 26. April 2007, Grant wrote:
> > I've found myself with a full hard disk and no obvious choices for
> > reducing usage.  Are there any not-so-obvious ways to free up hard
> > disk space?
> >
> > - Grant
> 
> localepurge
> 
> rm -rf /var/tmp/
> 
> using reiserfs
> 
> stop using -O3
> 
> rm -rf /usr/src/linux*
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Re: [gentoo-user] Reducing disk usage

[William Kenworthy]

depends:

I have been caught with a non-bootable system a few times and its much
easier to start from an existing config and go from there (After
numerous disasters, I wont use genkernel - even if its supposedly ok
these days)

A (very) few in-tree stuff still seems to want a kernel
(vmware-modules?) - not sure what but these days I always keep the last
two around as Ive been caught in the past.

I also do an occasional ext package - sometimes they want kernel source
code.

So yes, on a basic, user system you dont need it.  But do something out
of the ordinary and its quite handy to keep the source code around...

YMMV
BillK




On Fri, 2007-04-27 at 12:12 +0200, Hemmann, Volker Armin wrote:
> On Freitag, 27. April 2007, W.Kenworthy wrote:
> 
> >
> > rm -rf /usr/src/linux* - dangerous, lokk in there first and only remove
> > what you are not using (i.e., leave your current kernel, plus one other
> > "good" version as a backup - the number of times Ive had to roll
> > back ... :)
> 
> emm, no. Not dangerous at all. After you installed your kernel and the 3rd 
> party modules, you can safely remove the source-dir. There is nothing in it 
> that is needed anymore. And you don't keep old 'backup sources'. Backup 
> kernels in /boot are good enough... 
-- 
William Kenworthy <billk@iinet.net.au>
Home!
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Re: [gentoo-user] Reducing disk usage

[Grant]

> > I've found myself with a full hard disk and no obvious choices for
> > reducing usage.  Are there any not-so-obvious ways to free up hard
> > disk space?
> >
> > - Grant
>
> localepurge

"Total disk space freed by localepurge: 66836K"

Maybe just the edge I needed.  Hope I didn't hose the system.  Thanks everyone!

- Grant
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Re: [gentoo-user] Reducing disk usage

[fire-eyes]

Grant wrote:
> I've found myself with a full hard disk and no obvious choices for
> reducing usage.  Are there any not-so-obvious ways to free up hard
> disk space?
> 
> - Grant

I'll agree with the other suggestions which i'll put here:

1) rm -r /var/tmp/portage/* (the /* is important)
2) rm -r /usr/portage/distfiles/*
3) Keep your kernel sources compressed until you need them. This saves 
about 190MB or something:
	cd /usr/src/ ; tar cj linux-`uname -r` -f linux-`uname 
-r`-COMPRESSED.tar.bz2 && rm -r linux-`uname -r`     obviously you'll 
have to untar and re-delete that tree if you actually need it.

Here's a new one. Once you have more space, IF you have kde, filelight 
is a nice way to see space usage and track it down quickly and see it in 
a great visual format. Be sure to go into its settings, though, and tell 
it to cross filesystem boundaries, and also show small files.

I'll also agree that reiserfs (3) is nice in that by default it packs 
tails, i.e. compresses the ends of blocks. Over a whole system this can 
add up to a few dozen more MB of space usable.
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Re: [gentoo-user] Reducing disk usage

[Neil Bothwick]

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Hello fire-eyes,

> 1) rm -r /var/tmp/portage/* (the /* is important)

No it's not - if you delete the portage directory, portage will
simply recreate it when it needs it.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Fer sail cheep, Windows spel chekcer, wurks grate

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[gentoo-user] Re: Reducing disk usage

[Alexander Skwar]

· fire-eyes <sgtphou@fire-eyes.org>:

> Over a whole system this can 
> add up to a few dozen more MB of space usable.

This Depends largely on the "type" of files. I've got my portage
tree on a reiserfs, and in comparison to ext3, it saves couple
100 (one-zero-zero) megs!

Alexander Skwar
-- 
"Bond reflected that good Americans were fine people and that most of them
seemed to come from Texas."
- Ian Fleming, "Casino Royale"


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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Reducing disk usage

[Hemmann, Volker Armin]

On Donnerstag, 26. April 2007, Alexander Skwar wrote:
> · fire-eyes <sgtphou@fire-eyes.org>:
> > Over a whole system this can
> > add up to a few dozen more MB of space usable.
>
> This Depends largely on the "type" of files. I've got my portage
> tree on a reiserfs, and in comparison to ext3, it saves couple
> 100 (one-zero-zero) megs!
>

back in the good old days, when 10gb was big for a harddrive, I saved 2GB by 
using reiserfs. From 9GB to 7GB used. And that was a 'simple' Suse 
installation+personal stuff.
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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Reducing disk usage

[Csányi András]

Hemmann, Volker Armin írta:
> On Donnerstag, 26. April 2007, Alexander Skwar wrote:
>   
>> · fire-eyes <sgtphou@fire-eyes.org>:
>>     
>>> Over a whole system this can
>>> add up to a few dozen more MB of space usable.
>>>       
>> This Depends largely on the "type" of files. I've got my portage
>> tree on a reiserfs, and in comparison to ext3, it saves couple
>> 100 (one-zero-zero) megs!
>>
>>     
>
> back in the good old days, when 10gb was big for a harddrive, I saved 2GB by 
> using reiserfs. From 9GB to 7GB used. And that was a 'simple' Suse 
> installation+personal stuff.
>   
This is very big different.
The filesystem space is problem for me. Use i reiserfs?

Best regards,
András

--sorry for my englis... study :) ---

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--  Csányi András  -- http://sayusi.hu -- Sayusi Ando
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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Reducing disk usage

[Pongracz Istvan]

2007. 05. 3, csütörtök keltezéssel 22.17-kor Csányi András ezt írta:
> This is very big different.
> The filesystem space is problem for me. Use i reiserfs?
> 
> Best regards,
> András


If I were you, yes.
I use reiserfs for years and I have good experiences with it (fault
tolerant, space efficient etc.).

Or buy a bigger hard disk ;)


IStván

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Reducing disk usage

[waltdnes]

On Thu, May 03, 2007 at 10:17:50PM +0200, Cs??nyi Andr??s wrote

  Another thing you can do is use fewer partitions.  Each partition
requires a safety margin.  The fewer partitions you have, the less
wasted space for safety margins.  Here is my setup...

[m450][waltdnes][~] df
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda1              1208692    110608   1048928  10% /
udev                     62476      2640     59836   5% /dev
/dev/hda6             37815936  19929656  16349504  55% /home
shm                      62476         0     62476   0% /dev/shm

  I could shave another 900 megabytes off / and still have plenty of
room.  I accomplish this by moving /tmp /usr and /var to the /home
partition.  The system (/bin and /sbin) is constant.  /tmp is where
you can put large temporary files.  /usr has portage and /usr/bin.
/var has the logfiles.

-- 
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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Reducing disk usage

[Alan McKinnon]

On Friday 04 May 2007, waltdnes@waltdnes.org wrote:
> I accomplish this by moving /tmp /usr and /var to the /home
> partition.

Surely you meant "move the /tmp, /usr and /var to the / partition"?

It won't work moving them to /home unless you put symlinks in and that 
would just be ... odd

alan


-- 
Optimists say the glass is half full,
Pessimists say the glass is half empty,
Developers say wtf is the glass twice as big as it needs to be?

Alan McKinnon
alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za
+27 82, double three seven, one nine three five
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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Reducing disk usage

[waltdnes]

On Fri, May 04, 2007 at 09:15:47AM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote
> On Friday 04 May 2007, waltdnes@waltdnes.org wrote:
> > I accomplish this by moving /tmp /usr and /var to the /home
> > partition.
> 
> Surely you meant "move the /tmp, /usr and /var to the / partition"?

  Let me rephrase myself...
  - *PHYSICALLY* moving /tmp /usr and /var to the /home partition.
  - bind mount (or symlink) these directories to the / partition

> It won't work moving them to /home unless you put symlinks in and
> that would just be ... odd

  It may be "odd", but it gets the job done.  The files end up
*PHYSICALLY* residing in the /home partition, but *LOGICALLY* on /tmp,
/usr and /var.  Here's how I implement it.  I set up /tmp /usr and /var
in /home/bindmounts/ (note the permissions on /home/bindmounts/tmp).

[m450][root][~] ll /home/bindmounts/
total 20
drwxr-xr-x  5 root root 4096 Apr 29 13:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  7 root root 4096 May  1 00:08 ..
drwxrwxrwt 10 root root 4096 May  4 22:00 tmp
drwxr-xr-x 15 root root 4096 Apr 29 03:53 usr
drwxr-xr-x 14 root root 4096 Apr 28 20:36 var


I create *EMPTY* directories named /tmp /usr and /var on /.  And then I
bind mount the directories.  Here's a snippet from /etc/fstab

/home/bindmounts/var    /var            auto            bind 0 0
/home/bindmounts/usr    /usr            auto            bind 0 0
/home/bindmounts/tmp    /tmp            auto            bind 0 0

  Symlinks would normally work, too.  However, if for some reason, the
/home partition is unavailable at bootup, the system would complain
about symlinks.  With empty directories, you at least get a basic system
booting up with fewer complaints.

  Let me repeat the reason for the "oddness".  The stripped-down /
partition is going to be pretty constant, so I don't have to allow lots
of empty space as a safety margin.  The wildcards, in terms of filespace
are...
  - /var (logs and other stuff)
  - /usr (/usr/bin for all my apps, and /usr (share, portage, libs))
  - /tmp (this is where big temporary files go)

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A. I think it would be a good idea.
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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Reducing disk usage

[Alan McKinnon]

On Saturday 05 May 2007, waltdnes@waltdnes.org wrote:
> > Surely you meant "move the /tmp, /usr and /var to the / partition"?
>
>   Let me rephrase myself...
>   - *PHYSICALLY* moving /tmp /usr and /var to the /home partition.
>   - bind mount (or symlink) these directories to the / partition

OK, I see what you mean. Personally, I would have done it slightly 
differently:

- create a partition with /home, /usr, /tmp, /var directories
- mount this somewhere, say /stuff
- mount -o bind /stuff/home /home
- etc ...

But that's because I know myself and I know if I did it your way I'd 
confuse the dickens out of myself three days later when finding a usr/, 
var/, tmp/ inside /home. It seems that human memory is like those Flash 
NAND things - it deterioriates with age, hehehe :-)

alan


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Pessimists say the glass is half empty,
Developers say wtf is the glass twice as big as it needs to be?

Alan McKinnon
alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za
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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Reducing disk usage

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sat, 28 Apr 2007 11:59:01 +0200, Ralf Stephan wrote:

> > This Depends largely on the "type" of files. I've got my portage
> > tree on a reiserfs, and in comparison to ext3, it saves couple
> > 100 (one-zero-zero) megs!  
> 
> OTOH, you may not need to switch to reiser for that.
> It may simply be a matter of giving /usr/portage its own 
> partition and a smaller block size.

You would only save space like that if the partition was only just big
enough to hold the portage tree. With the amount of file churn in the
tree, the filesystem would get very fragmented very quickly.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

I don't know what makes you tick but I wish it was a time bomb.

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[gentoo-user] Re: Re: Reducing disk usage

[Alexander Skwar]

· Ralf Stephan <ralf@ark.in-berlin.de>:

>> This Depends largely on the "type" of files. I've got my portage
>> tree on a reiserfs, and in comparison to ext3, it saves couple
>> 100 (one-zero-zero) megs!
> 
> OTOH, you may not need to switch to reiser for that.

Uhm, any particular reason, why switching to reiser just
for that would be bad? I've got the tree on a filesystem
which is dedicated for that.

Alexander Skwar
-- 
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        -- Brett Manz


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Re: [gentoo-user] Reducing disk usage

[Florian Philipp]

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> I've found myself with a full hard disk and no obvious choices for
> reducing usage.  Are there any not-so-obvious ways to free up hard
> disk space?
>
> - Grant

If you like experimenting, you might consider this: 
http://e2compr.sourceforge.net/

I've not tested it myself and I've not even read its documentation, I just 
stumbled upon it.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Reducing disk usage

[Troy Curtis Jr]

On 4/26/07, Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've found myself with a full hard disk and no obvious choices for
> reducing usage.  Are there any not-so-obvious ways to free up hard
> disk space?
>
> - Grant
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>

I don't know if this is *obvious* or not, but you might check your log
directory, /var/log.  I found my disk full one day because of a bunch
of brute force SSH attempts!  ( I was getting pretty close without
them, but they pushed it to the brink!)

Troy
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Download now at http://getfirefox.com
Registered Linux User #354814 ( http://counter.li.org/)
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RE: [gentoo-user] Re: Reducing disk usage

[Adam Carter]

A bit softer than some of the other suggestions;

# eclean packages
# eclean distfiles

app-portage/gentoolkit contains eclean. From the man page;

"eclean  is  small  tool  to  remove  obsolete portage sources files and
       binary packages.  Used on a regular basis, it prevents your
DISTDIR and
       PKGDIR  directories  to infinitely grow, while not deleting files
which
       may still be useful"

HTH,
Adam
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