[gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Fernando Meira]

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Hi,
this is probably an old discussion, sorry for bring it up again.

When I joined Gentoo (a few months ago) I got the idea that I could control 
very well the space that gentoo would require. That would be great because 
of my 4.6G available to it. Then, not so long time ago I got very surprised 
with how much less space available I had when I didn't have (almost) 
anything installed. Now it's completely full and I'm the middle of an emerge 
:(

Well, tears apart, I would like to know if there's a good way to control the 
space usage of portage, since it is the reason for my problem. 
My /usr/portage and /var/tmp/portage/ take 2.2G which is almost half of the 
partition.

What I have installed:
- some (split) ebuilds of kde 3.4.1
- e16
- e17
- firefox
- gimp
- acrobat reader 7
- xmms, amsn (and maybe a few more small packages)

What I've found until now:
- clear /usr/portage/distfiles and /var/tmp/portage after an emerge, or 
regularly (using tmpreaper)
- there are some users-made scripts (still buggy) that look for old ebuilds 
in portage tree and erases them (
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-3011-highlight-portage+space+usage.html
)

Any comments/ideas/scripts about this, or everyone has plenty space to 
spare...

Cheers,
Fernando

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Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Rumen Yotov]

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Fernando Meira wrote:

> Hi,
> this is probably an old discussion, sorry for bring it up again.
>
> When I joined Gentoo (a few months ago) I got the idea that I could
> control very well the space that gentoo would require. That would be
> great because of my 4.6G available to it. Then, not so long time ago I
> got very surprised with how much less space available I had when I
> didn't have (almost) anything installed. Now it's completely full and
> I'm the middle of an emerge :(
>
> Well, tears apart, I would like to know if there's a good way to
> control the space usage of portage, since it is the reason for my
> problem.
> My /usr/portage and /var/tmp/portage/ take 2.2G which is almost half
> of the partition.
>
> What I have installed:
>  - some (split) ebuilds of kde 3.4.1
>  - e16
>  - e17
>  - firefox
>  - gimp
>  - acrobat reader 7
>  - xmms, amsn (and maybe a few more small packages)
>
> What I've found until now:
>  - clear /usr/portage/distfiles and /var/tmp/portage after an emerge,
> or regularly (using tmpreaper)
>  - there are some users-made scripts (still buggy) that look for old
> ebuilds in portage tree and erases them
> (http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-3011-highlight-portage+space+usage.html
> <http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-3011-highlight-portage+space+usage.html>)
>
> Any comments/ideas/scripts about this, or everyone has plenty space to
> spare...
>
> Cheers,
> Fernando

Hi,
Just checking the size of '/usr/portage' and it's quite 3 GB using
reiserfs from which 1,4 GB is in 'distfiles' (source code) and 1,2  GB
in 'packages' (binary packages in my case) so just portage is around 400
MB here.
My '/var/tmp/portage' directory is (~430 MB) together with portage logs
which are the most of it (PORT_LOGDIR=).
You could erase all of '/var/tmp/portage' and '/usr/portage/distfiles'
(you'll have to download the sources again though).
Also check if using "keepwork" in your /etc/make.conf file if 'yes'
remove it (specially in case not having disk space, same for
"buildpkg"). For cleaning 'distfiles' i use "distclean.py" script. Try
out "emerge depclean -pv" but watch out before removing the "p" afterwards.
HTH. Rumen

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Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[motub]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Fernando Meira <fmeira@gmail.com> 
Date: Sunday, August 7, 2005 10:22 pm 
Subject: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage 
 
> Hi, 
> this is probably an old discussion, sorry for bring it up again. 
>  
> When I joined Gentoo (a few months ago) I got the idea that I could  
> control  
> very well the space that gentoo would require. That would be great  
> because  
> of my 4.6G available to it. Then, not so long time ago I got very  
> surprised  
> with how much less space available I had when I didn't have  
> (almost)  
> anything installed. Now it's completely full and I'm the middle of  
> an emerge  
> :( 
>  
> Well, tears apart, I would like to know if there's a good way to  
> control the  
> space usage of portage, since it is the reason for my problem.  
> My /usr/portage and /var/tmp/portage/ take 2.2G which is almost  
> half of the  
> partition. 
>  
> What I have installed: 
> - some (split) ebuilds of kde 3.4.1 
> - e16 
> - e17 
> - firefox 
> - gimp 
> - acrobat reader 7 
> - xmms, amsn (and maybe a few more small packages) 
>  
> What I've found until now: 
> - clear /usr/portage/distfiles and /var/tmp/portage after an  
> emerge, or  
> regularly (using tmpreaper) 
> - there are some users-made scripts (still buggy) that look for old  
> ebuilds  
> in portage tree and erases them ( 
> http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-3011-highlight- 
> portage+space+usage.html) 
>  
> Any comments/ideas/scripts about this, or everyone has plenty space  
> to  
> spare... 
>  
> Cheers, 
> Fernando 
 
As far as I know, that's pretty much what you can do (assuming that the cleaning of /var/tmp/portage occurs when you have a failed emerge 
as well, since failed emerges leave the temporary work files there until the emerge is either correctly completed, or you delete the files 
yourself). 
 
The thing is, it now depends to some degree on just what you are emerging, because as you fill your disk with emerged programs, and 
assuming that those programs don't reside on another disk (/usr, /var, /tmp, or /opt on another disk or partition than / ), you will lose 
the ability to compile certain programs that naturally take up more space than you have available during the emerge process. 
 
I'm thinking specifically of OpenOffice.org, which takes about 3GB just to emerge, but I suspect Mozilla and its ilk, and certain KDE 
programs may not be much better. Not to mention X.org or glibc. But from what you've said, even if /usr/portage/distfiles 
and /var/tmp/portage are empty, you wouldn't have enough space to emerge OO.o at this time, and possibly other high-end programs as well. 
Of course, you could just use the openoffice-bin package for that case. But not for every case that this might occur, and frankly, it's a 
losing proposition (either you have to be constantly on the ball as to how much space every program you want needs to emerge, or you have 
to give up some stuff). 
 
Less than 5GB is really not enough for a Gentoo install unless it's going to be *very* minimal. If I was you, I'd look around for an old 5 
or 10 GB disk, slap it in the box and move /usr or /var (probably a better choice) to that, and then mount it to the / partition. 
 
Just my 0.02 
Holly 
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Fernando Meira]

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Ok, so running through that forum I decided to try out some of the scripts 
to clean stale distfiles.
The first one (distcleaner-0.0.2) returned a lot of errors. The second (
distmaint.py) was too weird. Finally, (distclean.sh) seemed to be ok, and 
freed 255 MB. I could then end my emerge (eclipse). After the emerge I 
end-up with 805Mb free. 

As you say Holly, this is far from enough if I want to compile something big 
and also maybe for smaller apps. Which means that I have a problem.
In fact, I have a 38GB disk on my laptop. My mistake was that I assumed that 
gentoo was not so space-consuming. Now I'll have to make some modifications, 
redo my partitions. What I would like was to clean once per all my windoz 
partition (9GB)... but from time to time I need it.. unless I find a 
replacement to all the things I need from there.

Anyway, thanks for the replies.
If someone has a nice script to maintain distfiles under control let me 
know. ;)

Cheers,
Fernando.

On 8/7/05, motub@planet.nl <motub@planet.nl> wrote:
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Fernando Meira <fmeira@gmail.com>
> Date: Sunday, August 7, 2005 10:22 pm
> Subject: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage
> 
> > Hi,
> > this is probably an old discussion, sorry for bring it up again.
> >
> > When I joined Gentoo (a few months ago) I got the idea that I could
> > control
> > very well the space that gentoo would require. That would be great
> > because
> > of my 4.6G available to it. Then, not so long time ago I got very
> > surprised
> > with how much less space available I had when I didn't have
> > (almost)
> > anything installed. Now it's completely full and I'm the middle of
> > an emerge
> > :(
> >
> > Well, tears apart, I would like to know if there's a good way to
> > control the
> > space usage of portage, since it is the reason for my problem.
> > My /usr/portage and /var/tmp/portage/ take 2.2G which is almost
> > half of the
> > partition.
> >
> > What I have installed:
> > - some (split) ebuilds of kde 3.4.1
> > - e16
> > - e17
> > - firefox
> > - gimp
> > - acrobat reader 7
> > - xmms, amsn (and maybe a few more small packages)
> >
> > What I've found until now:
> > - clear /usr/portage/distfiles and /var/tmp/portage after an
> > emerge, or
> > regularly (using tmpreaper)
> > - there are some users-made scripts (still buggy) that look for old
> > ebuilds
> > in portage tree and erases them (
> > http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-3011-highlight-
> > portage+space+usage.html)
> >
> > Any comments/ideas/scripts about this, or everyone has plenty space
> > to
> > spare...
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Fernando
> 
> As far as I know, that's pretty much what you can do (assuming that the 
> cleaning of /var/tmp/portage occurs when you have a failed emerge
> as well, since failed emerges leave the temporary work files there until 
> the emerge is either correctly completed, or you delete the files
> yourself).
> 
> The thing is, it now depends to some degree on just what you are emerging, 
> because as you fill your disk with emerged programs, and
> assuming that those programs don't reside on another disk (/usr, /var, 
> /tmp, or /opt on another disk or partition than / ), you will lose
> the ability to compile certain programs that naturally take up more space 
> than you have available during the emerge process.
> 
> I'm thinking specifically of OpenOffice.org, which takes about 3GB just to 
> emerge, but I suspect Mozilla and its ilk, and certain KDE
> programs may not be much better. Not to mention X.org <http://X.org> or 
> glibc. But from what you've said, even if /usr/portage/distfiles
> and /var/tmp/portage are empty, you wouldn't have enough space to emerge 
> OO.o at this time, and possibly other high-end programs as well.
> Of course, you could just use the openoffice-bin package for that case. 
> But not for every case that this might occur, and frankly, it's a
> losing proposition (either you have to be constantly on the ball as to how 
> much space every program you want needs to emerge, or you have
> to give up some stuff).
> 
> Less than 5GB is really not enough for a Gentoo install unless it's going 
> to be *very* minimal. If I was you, I'd look around for an old 5
> or 10 GB disk, slap it in the box and move /usr or /var (probably a better 
> choice) to that, and then mount it to the / partition.
> 
> Just my 0.02
> Holly
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
> 
>

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Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Francisco J. A. Ares]

Fernando Meira wrote:

> Ok, so running through that forum I decided to try out some of the
> scripts to clean stale distfiles.
> The first one (distcleaner-0.0.2) returned a lot of errors. The second
> (distmaint.py) was too weird. Finally, (distclean.sh) seemed to be ok,
> and freed 255 MB. I could then end my emerge (eclipse). After the
> emerge I end-up with 805Mb free.
>
> As you say Holly, this is far from enough if I want to compile
> something big and also maybe for smaller apps. Which means that I have
> a problem.
> In fact, I have a 38GB disk on my laptop. My mistake was that I
> assumed that gentoo was not so space-consuming. Now I'll have to make
> some modifications, redo my partitions. What I would like was to clean
> once per all my windoz partition (9GB)... but from time to time I need
> it.. unless I find a replacement to all the things I need from there.
>
> Anyway, thanks for the replies.
> If someone has a nice script to maintain distfiles under control let
> me know. ;)
>
> Cheers,
> Fernando.
>

Not a script, but I have some machines with /usr/portage NFS'd to a
server (I'm thinking about doing the same with /var/tmp/portage/ also,
but don't know how to lock it to avoid colisions).

If you have a desktop, you can do the same, and also use distcc to
accelerate the builds.

Francisco

-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Tero Grundstr�m]

On Sun, 7 Aug 2005, Fernando Meira wrote:

> I could then end my emerge (eclipse). After the emerge I end-up with 
> 805Mb free.
>
> In fact, I have a 38GB disk on my laptop. My mistake was that I assumed that
> gentoo was not so space-consuming. Now I'll have to make some modifications,
> redo my partitions.

805Mb is not much but re-partitioning might not be the only answer if most 
of your system is installed already.

Look for PORTAGE_TMPDIR and DISTDIR in your /etc/make.conf. Point them 
to directories that are on a different partition. You can do the same for 
your PORTDIR (resync and delete the old tree after this).

app-admin/localepurge can also save you some space.

HTH
--
T.G.
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Fernando Meira]

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Hi Tero,
what I meant with "redo my partitions" was in the way that I will expand my 
gentoo partition (or try to).
I have:
# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda4 4.6G 3.8G 803M 83% /
udev 252M 808K 252M 1% /dev
/dev/hda5 23G 20G 3.3G 86% /mnt/share
/dev/hda1 9.8G 8.0G 1.8G 82% /mnt/windows
none 252M 0 252M 0% /dev/shm

Options: 
- erase hda1 (win$) and merge with with hda4.
- somehow rearrange hda5 (which is FAT) and split it 2, and merge a part to 
hda4.

what are the advantages of pointing PORTAGE_TMPDIR and DISTDIR to other 
partitions?

thanks for the localepurge tip:
- Total disk space freed by localepurge: 48448K (not bad ;)

Cheers,
Fernando

On 8/7/05, Tero Grundstr� <tero@vuosaari.hai.fi> wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 7 Aug 2005, Fernando Meira wrote:
> 
> > I could then end my emerge (eclipse). After the emerge I end-up with
> > 805Mb free.
> >
> > In fact, I have a 38GB disk on my laptop. My mistake was that I assumed 
> that
> > gentoo was not so space-consuming. Now I'll have to make some 
> modifications,
> > redo my partitions.
> 
> 805Mb is not much but re-partitioning might not be the only answer if most
> of your system is installed already.
> 
> Look for PORTAGE_TMPDIR and DISTDIR in your /etc/make.conf. Point them
> to directories that are on a different partition. You can do the same for
> your PORTDIR (resync and delete the old tree after this).
> 
> app-admin/localepurge can also save you some space.
> 
> HTH
> --
> T.G.
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
> 
>

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Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Tero Grundstr�m]

On Sun, 7 Aug 2005, Fernando Meira wrote:

> Hi Tero,
> what I meant with "redo my partitions" was in the way that I will expand 
> my gentoo partition (or try to).
> I have:
> # df -h
> Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> /dev/hda4 4.6G 3.8G 803M 83% /
^^ *might* be enough for a minimal system, but not for your compiles or 
distfiles.

> udev 252M 808K 252M 1% /dev
^^ Why a separate partition for /dev? This is complete waste. Especially 
with that size.

> /dev/hda5 23G 20G 3.3G 86% /mnt/share
^^ You'll *never* need that much space in here. Do not have this on a 
separate partition. Maybe you could make this partition your /home ?

> /dev/hda1 9.8G 8.0G 1.8G 82% /mnt/windows
^^ Complete waste ;)

> none 252M 0 252M 0% /dev/shm
>
> Options: 
> - erase hda1 (win$) and merge with with hda4.
> - somehow rearrange hda5 (which is FAT) and split it 2, and merge a part 
> to hda4.

It is up to you how to rearrange them but I suggest that you have only 
these partitions for Gentoo:

/boot
/
/home (optional but recommended)
(+swap)

>
> what are the advantages of pointing PORTAGE_TMPDIR and DISTDIR to other 
> partitions?

The idea is, ofcourse, to give your compiles and distfiles more room. 
This in turn would free up space for your system.

>
> thanks for the localepurge tip:
> - Total disk space freed by localepurge: 48448K (not bad ;)

Yeah, it's great. BTW, check out the 'userlocales' USE flag for glibc too. 
It will speed up the compilation and save some space.

--
T.G.
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sun, 07 Aug 2005 19:04:32 -0300, Francisco J. A. Ares wrote:

> Not a script, but I have some machines with /usr/portage NFS'd to a
> server (I'm thinking about doing the same with /var/tmp/portage/ also,
> but don't know how to lock it to avoid colisions).

Putting PORTAGE_TMPDIR on an NFS partition would slow merging down
horribly.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy other people to shoot at.

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Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[W.Kenworthy]

Also makes long builds like OO and xorg fail for random network issues
as well seeming to take forever.  My success rate for OO is under 50% of
attempts when I was using NFS for the tmpdir.  Did work fine for smaller
builds tho.

BillK


On Mon, 2005-08-08 at 09:03 +0100, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sun, 07 Aug 2005 19:04:32 -0300, Francisco J. A. Ares wrote:
> 
> > Not a script, but I have some machines with /usr/portage NFS'd to a
> > server (I'm thinking about doing the same with /var/tmp/portage/ also,
> > but don't know how to lock it to avoid colisions).
> 
> Putting PORTAGE_TMPDIR on an NFS partition would slow merging down
> horribly.
> 
> 

-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Mon, 8 Aug 2005 10:45:36 +0300 (EEST), Tero Grundstr_m wrote:

> > udev 252M 808K 252M 1% /dev
> ^^ Why a separate partition for /dev? This is complete waste.
> Especially with that size.

udev is a virtual filesystem, it's using 808K of memory, not 252M of disk
space. udev appears to allocate half the available RAM as the maximum size
for /dev.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

But there, everything has its drawbacks, as the man said when his
mother-in-law died, and they came down upon him for the funeral expenses.
-- Jerome K. Jerome

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Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Tero Grundstr�m]

On Mon, 8 Aug 2005, Neil Bothwick wrote:

> On Mon, 8 Aug 2005 10:45:36 +0300 (EEST), Tero Grundstr_m wrote:
>
>>> udev 252M 808K 252M 1% /dev
>> ^^ Why a separate partition for /dev? This is complete waste.
>> Especially with that size.
>
> udev is a virtual filesystem, it's using 808K of memory, not 252M of disk
> space. udev appears to allocate half the available RAM as the maximum size
> for /dev.

Your right. It's correct. Maybe I got distracted because of the 23Gb 
/mnt/share partition and spoke too early...

--
T.G.
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

RE: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Michael Kintzios]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tero Grundstrm [mailto:tero@vuosaari.hai.fi] 
> Sent: 08 August 2005 08:46
> To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
> Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage
> 
> 
> On Sun, 7 Aug 2005, Fernando Meira wrote:
> 
> It is up to you how to rearrange them but I suggest that you 
> have only 
> these partitions for Gentoo:
> 
> /boot
> /
> /home (optional but recommended)
> (+swap)

You could have a separate /usr or /usr/portage partition so that when/if
it runs out of space, your system continues to run despite the emerge
coming to a halt.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

RE: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Tero Grundstr�m]

On Mon, 8 Aug 2005, Michael Kintzios wrote:

>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Tero Grundstrm [mailto:tero@vuosaari.hai.fi]
>> Sent: 08 August 2005 08:46
>> To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
>> Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage
>>
>>
>> On Sun, 7 Aug 2005, Fernando Meira wrote:
>>
>> It is up to you how to rearrange them but I suggest that you
>> have only
>> these partitions for Gentoo:
>>
>> /boot
>> /
>> /home (optional but recommended)
>> (+swap)
>
> You could have a separate /usr or /usr/portage partition so that when/if
> it runs out of space, your system continues to run despite the emerge
> coming to a halt.

I don't don't know if this is very practical, atleast without a volume 
manager.

Besides, isn't this taken care of by the filesystem already? I know that 
ext2/3 preserve a persentage of the partition size for root especially for 
these cases.

--
T.G.
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Sean Reiser]

Fernando Meira wrote:

> Hi Tero,
> what I meant with "redo my partitions" was in the way that I will 
> expand my gentoo partition (or try to).
> I have:
> # df -h
> Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> /dev/hda4             4.6G  3.8G  803M  83% /
> udev                  252M  808K  252M   1% /dev
> /dev/hda5              23G   20G  3.3G  86% /mnt/share
> /dev/hda1             9.8G  8.0G  1.8G  82% /mnt/windows
> none                  252M     0  252M   0% /dev/shm
>
> Options:
>  - erase hda1 (win$) and merge with with hda4.
>  - somehow rearrange hda5 (which is FAT) and split it 2, and merge a 
> part to hda4.

The question is...can you live without the windows partition?  if you 
don't need it I would look at this:

1) Merge hda1 and hda4.  Assuming this is desktop box that should be 
plenty of space for the system and applications
2) Create a /boot partition (assuming you don't currently have one on 
your box that wasn't mounted when you did the df).  This way if your 
system crashes at least /boot will not be corrupted.
3) Convert hda5 to ext3|reiserfs|jfs|mature non-fat fs of choice.  Mount 
it as /home.
4) Consider creating a swap partition.  Even if you have plenty of RAM, 
in my experience Linux just runs better with a swap partition mounted. 

I would strongly suggest that you do a full backup before doing any of 
this.  I know there are partition resizing and reformatting utilities 
but they I wouldn't trust them without a backup. 

HTH

--
spr

-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

RE: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Michael Kintzios]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tero Grundstrm [mailto:tero@vuosaari.hai.fi] 
> Sent: 08 August 2005 11:21
> To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
> Subject: RE: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage
> 
> On Mon, 8 Aug 2005, Michael Kintzios wrote:
> 
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Tero Grundstrm [mailto:tero@vuosaari.hai.fi]
> >> Sent: 08 August 2005 08:46
> >> To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
> >> Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage
> >>
[snip]
> > You could have a separate /usr or /usr/portage partition so 
> that when/if
> > it runs out of space, your system continues to run despite 
> the emerge
> > coming to a halt.
> 
> I don't don't know if this is very practical, atleast without 
> a volume 
> manager.
> 
> Besides, isn't this taken care of by the filesystem already? 
> I know that 
> ext2/3 preserve a persentage of the partition size for root 
> especially for 
> these cases.

Well, it has been practical enough for *my* needs.  For a while I was
running Gentoo on a small partition and having run aground on a couple
of cases with a seized system during some mammoth emerge, I decided to
set up a separate /usr partition.  Thereafter, I was able to recover
future incidents without having to boot the LiveCD.  As you say, if
someone is going to alter partition sizes often then LVM is the way to
go.  On the other hand if you have a good idea on how big your
/usr/portage is or needs to be then my suggestion is a simple enough
solution.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Mon, 8 Aug 2005 14:00:49 +0100, Michael Kintzios wrote:

> Well, it has been practical enough for *my* needs.  For a while I was
> running Gentoo on a small partition and having run aground on a couple
> of cases with a seized system during some mammoth emerge, I decided to
> set up a separate /usr partition.

You don't need to add partitions, because portage isn't hard coded to use
any particular partitions. If you run out of space during emerges, you
only have to change $PORTAGE_TMPDIR to somewhere with more space
than /var. Equally, you can change $DISTDIR to reduce the amount of space
used in /usr/portage, you could even change it to a FAT32 partition of
your Windows installation has more free space than Gentoo.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

I am NOT Paranoid! And why are you always watching me??

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Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Richard Fish]

Fernando Meira wrote:

> Ok, so running through that forum I decided to try out some of the 
> scripts to clean stale distfiles.
> The first one (distcleaner-0.0.2) returned a lot of errors. The second 
> (distmaint.py) was too weird. Finally, (distclean.sh) seemed to be ok, 
> and freed 255 MB. I could then end my emerge (eclipse). After the 
> emerge I end-up with 805Mb free.
>
> As you say Holly, this is far from enough if I want to compile 
> something big and also maybe for smaller apps. Which means that I have 
> a problem.
> In fact, I have a 38GB disk on my laptop. My mistake was that I 
> assumed that gentoo was not so space-consuming. Now I'll have to make 
> some modifications, redo my partitions. What I would like was to clean 
> once per all my windoz partition (9GB)... but from time to time I need 
> it.. unless I find a replacement to all the things I need from there.
>
> Anyway, thanks for the replies.
> If someone has a nice script to maintain distfiles under control let 
> me know. ;)


My preference, since I normally mount with noatime, is:

mount /u/p/distfiles -o remount,atime    (yes, I keep distfiles on a 
separate LVM volume!)
emerge --deep --emptytree --fetchonly world      (updates atimes)
mount /u/p/distfiles -o remount,noatime
find /u/p/distfiles -amin +60 -exec rm -v {} \;

The above commands will remove all distfiles not needed anymore, either 
due to updates or unmerge packages.

-Richard

-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Fernando Meira]

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Hi,

On 8/8/05, Tero Grundstr� <tero@vuosaari.hai.fi> wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 7 Aug 2005, Fernando Meira wrote:
> 
> > Hi Tero,
> > what I meant with "redo my partitions" was in the way that I will expand
> > my gentoo partition (or try to).
> > I have:
> > # df -h
> > Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> > /dev/hda4 4.6G 3.8G 803M 83% /
> ^^ *might* be enough for a minimal system, but not for your compiles or
> distfiles.


Yep. I don't pretend to have a minimal system. In fact, my laptop is the 
only pc I currently use, so it has to have everything I need.

> udev 252M 808K 252M 1% /dev
> ^^ Why a separate partition for /dev? This is complete waste. Especially
> with that size.


As Neil said, it is a virtual filesystem. I didn't create it. What I did 
create was the swap partition with 512MB (the same size as my RAM) and it 
looks like it is split into two: "udev" and "none".

> /dev/hda5 23G 20G 3.3G 86% /mnt/share
> ^^ You'll *never* need that much space in here. Do not have this on a
> separate partition. Maybe you could make this partition your /home ?


Well, this partition has the purpose to hold all my documents and stuff. My 
idea was to have a partition only to windoz and its programs, another to 
gentoo and its programs, and then this one accessed by both side. It started 
to be my /home but I had some problems with permissions in the beginning 
that I couldn't solve, so I had to move /home back to gentoo partition.

> /dev/hda1 9.8G 8.0G 1.8G 82% /mnt/windows
> ^^ Complete waste ;)


ehheh.. .yes! The problem is that I need some things from there. I really 
can't wait for the day when I don't waste disk space with crap. 

> what are the advantages of pointing PORTAGE_TMPDIR and DISTDIR to other
> > partitions?
> 
> The idea is, ofcourse, to give your compiles and distfiles more room.
> This in turn would free up space for your system.


Ok, but that is assuming that I can point them to other partition. But if I 
have other partition available, I can just merge it with gentoo's one and 
keep everything together. It would be the same, right? 

>
> > thanks for the localepurge tip:
> > - Total disk space freed by localepurge: 48448K (not bad ;)
> 
> Yeah, it's great. BTW, check out the 'userlocales' USE flag for glibc too.
> It will speed up the compilation and save some space.


I'll have a look to that.
Thanks!
Fernando

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Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Fernando Meira]

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Hi Sean,

On 8/8/05, Sean Reiser <sean@seanreiser.com> wrote:
> 
> Fernando Meira wrote:
> 
> > I have:
> > # df -h
> > Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> > /dev/hda4 4.6G 3.8G 803M 83% /
> > udev 252M 808K 252M 1% /dev
> > /dev/hda5 23G 20G 3.3G 86% /mnt/share
> > /dev/hda1 9.8G 8.0G 1.8G 82% /mnt/windows
> > none 252M 0 252M 0% /dev/shm
> >
> > Options:
> > - erase hda1 (win$) and merge with with hda4.
> > - somehow rearrange hda5 (which is FAT) and split it 2, and merge a
> > part to hda4.
> 
> The question is...can you live without the windows partition? 


Well, maybe. The problem is that sometimes I need to use something that 
works only under windows (or better under windows). Besides that I only use 
windows for video-conference (I haven't found the time to look for a linux 
replacement, assuming that my webcam works under linux).

 if you don't need it I would look at this:
> 
> 1) Merge hda1 and hda4. Assuming this is desktop box that should be
> plenty of space for the system and applications


Yes, that would be the best I could do. But, assuming that I can't remove 
entirely windows from my laptop, what about reduce it to it's minimum 
(windows + apps that I really need) and run it by VMware, always under 
Gentoo? The spare space from unused apps would merge it with gentoo's 
partition.. I estimate it of about 4Gb. What do you say about this?

2) Create a /boot partition (assuming you don't currently have one on
> your box that wasn't mounted when you did the df). This way if your
> system crashes at least /boot will not be corrupted.


My /boot is inside gentoo's partition. I understand the point of having it 
outside.. I should think of changing it!! Good point!

3) Convert hda5 to ext3|reiserfs|jfs|mature non-fat fs of choice. Mount
> it as /home.


The reason it is FAT32 is to windows be able to access it. With windows 
away, I could do that.
>From this partition (hda5) I may be able to free some space and "move" it to 
gentoo's partition.

4) Consider creating a swap partition. Even if you have plenty of RAM,
> in my experience Linux just runs better with a swap partition mounted.


I have. 512mb swap. df shows it slitted into 2 other: udev and none....

I would strongly suggest that you do a full backup before doing any of
> this. I know there are partition resizing and reformatting utilities
> but they I wouldn't trust them without a backup.


Yes, of course!
Thanks for suggestions.
Fernando.

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Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Fernando Meira]

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Hi Neil,

On 8/8/05, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 8 Aug 2005 14:00:49 +0100, Michael Kintzios wrote:
> 
> > Well, it has been practical enough for *my* needs. For a while I was
> > running Gentoo on a small partition and having run aground on a couple
> > of cases with a seized system during some mammoth emerge, I decided to
> > set up a separate /usr partition.
> 
> You don't need to add partitions, because portage isn't hard coded to use
> any particular partitions. If you run out of space during emerges, you
> only have to change $PORTAGE_TMPDIR to somewhere with more space
> than /var. Equally, you can change $DISTDIR to reduce the amount of space
> used in /usr/portage, you could even change it to a FAT32 partition of
> your Windows installation has more free space than Gentoo.


So I can point them both to the FAT32 partition and get 1Gb back (when not 
emerging) to gentoo's system.. that's interesting! That could help me until 
I find a real solution to the mess on my pc... :)

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Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Fernando Meira]

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On 8/8/05, Richard Fish <bigfish@asmallpond.org> wrote:

> My preference, since I normally mount with noatime, is:
> 
> mount /u/p/distfiles -o remount,atime (yes, I keep distfiles on a
> separate LVM volume!)
> emerge --deep --emptytree --fetchonly world (updates atimes)
> mount /u/p/distfiles -o remount,noatime
> find /u/p/distfiles -amin +60 -exec rm -v {} \;
> 
> The above commands will remove all distfiles not needed anymore, either
> due to updates or unmerge packages.


This looks to be a very nice way to do it. It works in another way than the 
scripts I been looking to. Instead of searching what "should" be deprecated, 
it verifies that after an emerge world.. nice and simple!! However, in this 
way you'll erase all other packages that you may need in case you want to 
recompile them.. but maybe in this case, it's better to download them again 
than keep ALL of them wasting your disk space.

Other thing: I was not aware of LVM volumes, what are the advantages of 
using it to keep distfiles? And, how big is your volume?

Cheers,
Fernando

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Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Sean Reiser]

Fernando Meira wrote:

>     The question is...can you live without the windows partition?   
>
>
> Well, maybe. The problem is that sometimes I need to use something 
> that works only under windows (or better under windows). Besides that 
> I only use windows for video-conference (I haven't found the time to 
> look for a linux replacement, assuming that my webcam works under linux).

mmhmm... the webcam / video-conference stuff is not something I have 
much expirience with either, sorry to say.  As far as the other software 
is concerned I would look at the crossover office fork of wine (assuming 
that wine itself won't run it) or maybe some virtualization software 
such as vmare.

>
>      if you don't need it I would look at this:
>
>     1) Merge hda1 and hda4.  Assuming this is desktop box that should be
>     plenty of space for the system and applications
>
>
> Yes, that would be the best I could do. But, assuming that I can't 
> remove entirely windows from my laptop, what about reduce it to it's 
> minimum (windows + apps that I really need) and run it by VMware, 
> always under Gentoo? The spare space from unused apps would merge it 
> with gentoo's partition.. I estimate it of about 4Gb. What do you say 
> about this?

With VMWare you create a virtual disk, which can be expanded as needed.  
This is one way to go.  As mentioned Wine is the other.

>     3) Convert hda5 to ext3|reiserfs|jfs|mature non-fat fs of
>     choice.  Mount
>     it as /home. 
>
>
> The reason it is FAT32 is to windows be able to access it. With 
> windows away, I could do that.

Right.  Keep in mind that with VMWare you can mount your linux home 
directory as a SMB share.

Another advantage of a seperate  /home is that you can reinstall the OS 
without effecting your important personal data and settings.   I realize 
on your current system /mnt/share really handled some of that but 
thought I'd mention it as well.

>     4) Consider creating a swap partition.  Even if you have plenty of
>     RAM,
>     in my experience Linux just runs better with a swap partition
>     mounted. 
>
>
> I have. 512mb swap. df shows it slitted into 2 other: udev and none....

OK... blury vision... that email was part of an allnighter.


--
spr

-- 
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Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Luke Albers]

On Mon, 2005-08-08 at 14:54 -0400, Sean Reiser wrote:
> Fernando Meira wrote:
> 
> >     The question is...can you live without the windows partition?   
> >
> >
> > Well, maybe. The problem is that sometimes I need to use something 
> > that works only under windows (or better under windows). Besides that 
> > I only use windows for video-conference (I haven't found the time to 
> > look for a linux replacement, assuming that my webcam works under linux).
> 
> mmhmm... the webcam / video-conference stuff is not something I have 
> much expirience with either, sorry to say.  As far as the other software 
> is concerned I would look at the crossover office fork of wine (assuming 
> that wine itself won't run it) or maybe some virtualization software 
> such as vmare.
> 
> >

I don't have any experience with it, but gnomemeeting might be something
you would be interested in

-- 
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Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Mon, 8 Aug 2005 18:23:30 +0000, Fernando Meira wrote:

> > You don't need to add partitions, because portage isn't hard coded to
> > use any particular partitions. If you run out of space during
> > emerges, you only have to change $PORTAGE_TMPDIR to somewhere with
> > more space than /var. Equally, you can change $DISTDIR to reduce the
> > amount of space used in /usr/portage, you could even change it to a
> > FAT32 partition of your Windows installation has more free space than
> > Gentoo.

> So I can point them both to the FAT32 partition and get 1Gb back (when
> not emerging) to gentoo's system.. that's interesting! That could help
> me until I find a real solution to the mess on my pc... :)

I'm not sure whether $PORTAGE_TMPDIR would work on a FAT32 partition,
because of the lack of permissions.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

-Come, come, why they couldn't hit an elephant from this dist-

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Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Fernando Meira]

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Hi again Sean,
thanks for answering (as well the others :))

more questions:

On 8/8/05, Sean Reiser <sean@seanreiser.com> wrote:

> mmhmm... the webcam / video-conference stuff is not something I have
> much expirience with either, sorry to say. As far as the other software
> is concerned I would look at the crossover office fork of wine (assuming
> that wine itself won't run it) or maybe some virtualization software
> such as vmare.


Yes, that might be the best I can do now.
I been looking for VMWare and Wine and from what I read, I prefer Wine, but 
does it run everything, most of it or almost nothing?
I read it is must harder to install/configure, but I'll give it a try. Or is 
there anyone to convince me that VMWare is better?
I'll erase my windows partition and merge it with gentoo's one. I'll end up 
with ~15Gb for gentoo... which seems to be fairly acceptable. In a future 
stage, I might convert my "share" partition from FAT32 to a linux like. By 
the way, I use reiserfs on my gentoo's partition. Will I have problems to 
resize it?

About the videoconference, I checked the forum and got aware of the cvs 
version of amsn which already supports it. :)

> 3) Convert hda5 to ext3|reiserfs|jfs|mature non-fat fs of
> > choice. Mount
> > it as /home.
> >
> >
> > The reason it is FAT32 is to windows be able to access it. With
> > windows away, I could do that.
> 
> Right. Keep in mind that with VMWare you can mount your linux home
> directory as a SMB share.
> 
> Another advantage of a seperate /home is that you can reinstall the OS
> without effecting your important personal data and settings. I realize
> on your current system /mnt/share really handled some of that but
> thought I'd mention it as well.


Yes, that was the main reason to have my personal files on other partition. 
As I said, converting this partition will be the next step after removing 
windows and installing wine.

Cheers,
Fernando

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Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Sean Reiser]

> On 8/8/05, *Sean Reiser* <sean@seanreiser.com 
> <mailto:sean@seanreiser.com>> wrote:
>
>     mmhmm... the webcam / video-conference stuff is not something I have
>     much expirience with either, sorry to say.  As far as the other
>     software
>     is concerned I would look at the crossover office fork of wine
>     (assuming
>     that wine itself won't run it) or maybe some virtualization software
>     such as vmare.
>
>
> Yes, that might be the best I can do now.
> I been looking for VMWare and Wine and from what I read, I prefer 
> Wine, but does it run everything, most of it or almost nothing?

heh... that's exactly right. :) .... It really depends on who you are 
and what you are doing.  I think I mentioned that I'm using the 
codeweaver crossover office port (http://www.codeweavers.com/).  Take a 
look both the wine site and their site to see if the applications you 
are looking to run will run.

> I read it is must harder to install/configure, but I'll give it a try. 
> Or is there anyone to convince me that VMWare is better?

They are entirely different products (I use both).  WINE is an api layer 
where VMWareis a true VM.  You'll get better better compatibility at the 
cost of RAM and performance.  I tend to use VMWare for a testing 
environment and WINE for running applications. 

> I'll erase my windows partition and merge it with gentoo's one. I'll 
> end up with ~15Gb for gentoo... which seems to be fairly acceptable. 
> In a future stage, I might convert my "share" partition from FAT32 to 
> a linux like. By the way, I use reiserfs on my gentoo's partition. 
> Will I have problems to resize it?

Even though reiserfs lets you do it I wouldn't resize the volume with it 
mounted (seems far too risky for my gut).  As I mentioned I would do a 
backup first (can't stress that enough).  Any time I've done this type 
of work I have booted from a live CD, backed up (and verified), scrogged 
and repartitioned, and then restored. 

FileSystem Caveat:  Although my last name is Reiser, I am not related or 
associated with reiserfs (or to Hans himself). Do not believe that I 
know more about reiserfs based on the strength of my last name.

>     >     3) Convert hda5 to ext3|reiserfs|jfs|mature non-fat fs of
>     >     choice.  Mount
>     >     it as /home.
>     >
>     >
>     > The reason it is FAT32 is to windows be able to access it. With
>     > windows away, I could do that.
>
>     Right.  Keep in mind that with VMWare you can mount your linux home
>     directory as a SMB share.
>
>     Another advantage of a seperate  /home is that you can reinstall
>     the OS
>     without effecting your important personal data and settings.   I
>     realize
>     on your current system /mnt/share really handled some of that but
>     thought I'd mention it as well.
>
>
> Yes, that was the main reason to have my personal files on other 
> partition.
> As I said, converting this partition will be the next step after 
> removing windows and installing wine.

Sounds like a good direction.

Good Luck.

--
spr

-- 
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Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Fernando Meira]

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On 8/9/05, Sean Reiser <sean@seanreiser.com> wrote:

> > I'll erase my windows partition and merge it with gentoo's one. I'll
> > end up with ~15Gb for gentoo... which seems to be fairly acceptable.
> > In a future stage, I might convert my "share" partition from FAT32 to
> > a linux like. By the way, I use reiserfs on my gentoo's partition.
> > Will I have problems to resize it?
> 
> Even though reiserfs lets you do it I wouldn't resize the volume with it
> mounted (seems far too risky for my gut). As I mentioned I would do a
> backup first (can't stress that enough). Any time I've done this type
> of work I have booted from a live CD, backed up (and verified), scrogged
> and repartitioned, and then restored.


I've been looking for comments about this process... and I got a little bit 
scared.
In my case, i have (in order):
- /dev/hda1 - 9.8G windows
- /dev/hda2 - EXTENDED
- /dev/hda5 - 23G share
- /dev/hda3 - 512Mb swap
- /dev/hda4 - 4.6G gentoo

So, am I wrong or is it impossible to merge hda1 and hda4 with hda5 in 
between?
I could rearrange swap and even create /boot, but I wont be able to move (at 
least at the time being) my share partition.
If I'm right, then what are my choices?

Could I:
- backup up gentoo's partition (maybe using SysRescueCD: 
http://www.sysresccd.org/
- format windows partition, create /boot at the beginning of the hd, use the 
rest for gentoo system
- use the actual gentoo partition for /home (or would it be better to other 
like /usr ??)
- restore gentoo system on the 1rst partition and fix boot.

Is there any better idea?
Maybe after a month or so, I may be able to move my SHARE and arrange this 
better...

FileSystem Caveat: Although my last name is Reiser, I am not related or
> associated with reiserfs (or to Hans himself). Do not believe that I
> know more about reiserfs based on the strength of my last name.


eheheh.. :) 

Good Luck.


Thanks, I'll need it. 

Fernando.

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Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Holly Bostick]

Fernando Meira schreef:

> I've been looking for comments about this process... and I got a little
> bit scared.
> In my case, i have (in order):
>  - /dev/hda1 - 9.8G  windows
> - /dev/hda2 - EXTENDED
> - /dev/hda5 - 23G   share
> - /dev/hda3 - 512Mb swap
> - /dev/hda4 - 4.6G gentoo
> 
> So, am I wrong or is it impossible to merge hda1 and hda4 with hda5 in
> between?
> I could rearrange swap and even create /boot, but I wont be able to move
> (at least at the time being) my share partition.
> If I'm right, then what are my choices?

Honestly, I'm not quite sure why you feel the driving need to merge
anything.

*You are a Linux user. You can mount partitions wherever you want.*

I don't think you can "merge" hda1 and hda4 without setting up LVM, but
there's no reason that you can't boot from a LiveCD, mount the
newly-empty hda1 to /mnt/temp, rsync the contents of /usr (or /var, or
whatever) to that partition, rename the current /var (or /usr, or
whatever) folder to var(usr).tmp, then edit your fstab to mount hda1 to
/var.

If it all works properly, erase /var(usr).tmp, and the space is free.

That's how most of us get extra space "on the fly" when there's no other
choice and it has to be done relatively quickly and with minimal
disturbance (as opposed to major repartitioning that might be necessary
for something like setting up LVM).

HTH,
Holly
-- 
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Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Fernando Meira]

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On 8/9/05, Holly Bostick <motub@planet.nl> wrote:
> 
> Fernando Meira schreef:
> 
> > I've been looking for comments about this process... and I got a little
> > bit scared.
> > In my case, i have (in order):
> > - /dev/hda1 - 9.8G windows
> > - /dev/hda2 - EXTENDED
> > - /dev/hda5 - 23G share
> > - /dev/hda3 - 512Mb swap
> > - /dev/hda4 - 4.6G gentoo
> >
> > So, am I wrong or is it impossible to merge hda1 and hda4 with hda5 in
> > between?
> > I could rearrange swap and even create /boot, but I wont be able to move
> > (at least at the time being) my share partition.
> > If I'm right, then what are my choices?
> 
> Honestly, I'm not quite sure why you feel the driving need to merge
> anything.
> 
> *You are a Linux user. You can mount partitions wherever you want.*


Of course... so obvious and I realize it before...

I don't think you can "merge" hda1 and hda4 without setting up LVM, but
> there's no reason that you can't boot from a LiveCD, mount the
> newly-empty hda1 to /mnt/temp, rsync the contents of /usr (or /var, or
> whatever) to that partition, rename the current /var (or /usr, or
> whatever) folder to var(usr).tmp, then edit your fstab to mount hda1 to
> /var.


Ok, so what would be the best way? Since the current partition is quite 
limited (4.6G), I would need to "move" (mount) there something that worth 
the 10G. Mounting /home and pointing $PORTAGE_TMPDIR and $DISTDIR to that 
partition would be a good idea? Or split it into 2 (or 3) smaller parts and 
mount there /usr and /var (and /home or other)... this now is just to find a 
better way to use the available space.

Thanks for the help.
Fernando.

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