How do I free up disk space?

Question

The ubuntu 9.10 cloud server has left only 900MB of disk space. I'll just empty the directory /tmp and wondering if there is any other location to clean up.

Answer 1

sudo apt-get autoremove

That can clean out a lot of guff (old kernels, etc) that have been replaced. You can do a similar thing in Synaptic (load it up and select the status button and then the Auto-removeable option).

Answer 2

To delete downloaded packages (.deb) already installed (and no longer needed)

sudo apt-get clean

To remove all stored archives in your cache for packages that can not be downloaded anymore (thus packages that are no longer in the repository or that have a newer version in the repository).

sudo apt-get autoclean

To remove unnecessary packages (After uninstalling an app there could be packages you don't need anymore)

sudo apt-get autoremove

To delete old kernel versions

sudo apt-get remove --purge linux-image-X.X.XX-XX-generic

If you don't know which kernel version to remove

dpkg --get-selections | grep linux-image

Source: Limpiando Ubuntu: comandos y programas (actualización)

Answer 3

• show top 10 biggest subdirs in the current dir.

du -sk * | sort -nr | head -10

• use filelight or kDirStat to see where the disk space is going visually

• check if you have old kernels for deletion

ls -lh /boot

• cleaning packages

sudo apt-get autoremove

sudo apt-get autoclean

see list of all installed packages, sorted by size. If you see something big and don't use it - uninstall it

dpkg-query -W --showformat='${Installed-Size} ${Package}\n' | sort -nr | less

• clean unused language files with translations (there are tons of them)

sudo apt-get install localepurge

• check content of /var/tmp/

du -sh /var/tmp/

• check also

man deborphan

Answer 4

Try using BleachBit (located at sourceforge). It is a great program. the basic idea is that it quickly frees up disk space and removes a lot of the junk that is hidden in the system. There are about 70 applications that it can recognize and wipe clean. There is also the ability to use it to "wipe" the free disk space. I think of it as CCleaner from windows only for linux.

Answer 5

Do not forget to Empty Trash.

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Or from command line:

rm -r ~/.local/share/Trash/info/ && rm -r ~/.local/share/Trash/files/  

Answer 6

If you use UFW, check the log folder. On one of my machines, UFW was generating 8Gb of logs in a couple of days.

You could also empty the apt cache with:

sudo apt-get clean

Answer 7

I really recommend you the program BleachBit, which cleans everything on Ubuntu.

Install it using the following command:

sudo apt-get install bleachbit

Answer 8

The '/tmp' directory should never be cleaned up manually unless absolutely necessary (ie: a closed application didn't clean-up after itself).

You can search where space might be filling up using the 'du' command; usually places of interest are inside '/var'. To name two usual suspects '/var/log' and '/var/cache'. Though I've had some users who install a backup utility and never realise that it creates GBs of incremental backups in '/var/backup' that build up over a week or month to fill the entire disk space.

Answer 9

use ubuntu-tweak to clean.

it cleans all *.deb that are downloaded to installation apps.

Answer 10

First, there is a tool for listing all big folders and files. Just type 'Baobab' into the launcher. By removing folders and files you don't need you get more space.

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Then, there is a program for removing double files. The program is called fslint. Install it by entering

sudo apt-get install fslint

in a Terminal.

or graphically

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You can also clear the package cache with

sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get autoremove

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The fourth step is to remove old Kernel entries. You can do this by installing and opening Synaptic. In Synaptic, search for the old Kernel entries (every Kernel entry that is displayed in GRUB except the newest) and remove it.

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One good step is to remove the application cache. Do this by installing and running bleachbit:

sudo apt-get install bleachbit

or graphically

Important: Deleted cache cannot be restored!

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The last step is to defragment the file system. Do the following for this:

cd $home
git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/fs/ext2/e2fsprogs.git
cd e2fsprogs
./configure
make

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With these commands, you download and compile e2fsprogs. (If you or the community has got a better way to install the program, please edit!)

Also make sure that git-core is installed. If not, execute:

sudo apt-get install git-core 

or using Software Center

Now you can run the program with:

cd $home
cd e2fsprogs
cd misc
./e4defrag /dev/sda1    #defragment /dev/sda1
./e4defrag -v /dev/sda1 # verbose output
./e4defrag -c /dev/sda1 # see overview of fragmentation status

Replace /dev/sda1 with the file system or folder/file you want. Note that for defragmenting a device (such as HDD) you need root privilegs, but not for your own files.

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Source (German): here

Answer 11

I just freed up almost 2 gigs by removing old kernels and header files:

use

uname -r

to check your current version, then

dpkg -l linux-image-* linux-headers-*

to see all the old kernels and header files, then

sudo apt-get remove linux-image-<XYZ> linux-headers-<XYZ>

the apt-get remove command supports wildcards, so you can do apt-get remove linux-image 3.0.* linux-headers-3.0.* for example, to get rid of many at once.

Make sure you don't kill remove current kernel of course! And maybe keep one or two old version, just in case... but not 10 or 20!

Answer 12

Check for large numbers of log files too:

sudo du -h /var/log