Questions tagged [cleanup]

Questions related removing temporary, unnecessary, redundant files or libraries; also the questions for cleaning the cache, logs, etc.

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cleaning up /dev/sda3

I keep getting message 'Low diskspace on Filesystem root' and it mentions '/dev/sda3'. So I do 'df -h', which tells: How do I clean up sda3 to make more space available?
-3 votes
0 answers
32 views

cleaning hard drive of viruses, bugs, and malware

I wish to clean up and debug my hard disk. What is the process for doing this? I know that there is a way, I just do not know the commands to do so without wiping the entire disk. This I do not want ...
2 votes
2 answers
3k views

Is BleachBit really necessary?

I've heard that the ext4 filesystem does not need to be defragmented because the way it stores information is engineered to avoid exactly that problem. At them same time, I have a program called ...
1 vote
1 answer
74 views

snap only lists 2 versions per app, but did NOT delete the actual snaps

My /var is full because the old snaps are not being deleted. As a stopgap, can I just manually delete all but the two most recent snaps? How can I make the old snaps be automatically deleted like I ...
1 vote
1 answer
362 views

How to fully uninstall and clear Brave-Browser data?

Slowly but surely as I use Brave on Ubuntu it looses all functionality, first I can't log into my finances, then I can't download .pdfs, etc... . I keep clearing all data, purging off apps installed ...
1 vote
2 answers
1k views

Check if a package is required or whether it can be safely deleted

I can get the list of packages using command: dpkg-query --show --showformat='${Package;-50}\t${Installed-Size}\n' | sort -k 2 -n | grep -v deinstall | awk '{printf "%.3f MB \t %s\n", $2/(...
767 votes
40 answers
1.3m views

How do I remove old kernel versions to clean up the boot menu?

Every time I install a new Linux kernel, it gets left in the grub_config, making the boot menu longer each time. I know I can manually search through the installed packages and remove them. Does ...
1 vote
1 answer
71 views

How to clear all my storage and get my GB back

So I want to know how to clear all my storage on my computer and have all 16GB of free space. The storage SSD I'm using is a 16GB Kingston SSD that is installed in my Chromebook. The reason I'm doing ...
1 vote
1 answer
4k views

ERROR: Could not install packages due to an OSError: [Errno 28] No space left on device

i tried to use pip3 install torch==1.8.0+cu111 torchvision==0.9.0+cu111 torchaudio==0.8.0 -f https://download.pytorch.org/whl/torch_stable.html but got Installing collected packages: torch, ...
0 votes
0 answers
285 views

Ubuntu root partition is full, system won't boot, and "sudo apt-get clean" isn't working

I set up an Ubuntu rig to host Plex and act as a file server on my local network. I'm new to Ubuntu, so I followed directions and things seemed to be running fine--no problems with boot up or memory. ...
0 votes
0 answers
284 views

/var keeps filling up

I am on Ubuntu 22.04. My /dev/sda2 partition keeps running out of space. I delete files here and there as temporary fixes. I have deleted journal files and did auto-remove as well, but now these ...
0 votes
0 answers
106 views

How much of my root space (19.5GB) should be used up in an installation? [duplicate]

I have a root partition and a home partition, on a dual boot system (windows) I currently have 4.9GB available in my Ubuntu Desktop 22.04.2 LTS system after limiting my journal/ folder (Big /var/log/...
2 votes
1 answer
4k views

How do I clear Software Center history?

I have old Software Center history and I would like to clear it all. I tried sudo rm -rf /var/log/apt/history.log /var/log/dpkg.log but it did not work.
297 votes
4 answers
194k views

Big /var/log/journal?

I don't understand why the /var/log/journal/ folder is so big. For example, by executing the command systemctl -f, i see the fill. If I click on an email on Thunderbird, it generates dozens of lines ...
11 votes
3 answers
10k views

Why does Ubuntu not clean out old kernel module files (in /lib/modules) when old kernels are removed?

Today, I noticed that the directory /lib/modules still have all the directories from previously installed kernels, thus: $ ls /lib/modules 5.4.0-29-generic 5.4.0-31-generic 5.4.0-33-generic 5.4.0-...
48 votes
6 answers
441k views

How to clean /var/cache?

When I woke up this morning, I found my root had filled overnight du -hx --max-depth=1 / 132M /boot 4.0K /media 16K /lost+found 16M /root 702M /lib 4.0K /OLDHOME 8.2G /usr ...
1 vote
1 answer
2k views

Disk on root is almost full but can't find which files take the space

Ubuntu 22.04 Desktop If I do df -h i can see that my root folder is almost full And when I list the files in the folder, seems to me they are all system needed files. I tried to look a bit into it ...
3 votes
4 answers
4k views

How to clean gedit's and other editor's find&replace history?

I have started working on a new project using gedit on ubuntu 12.04. The problem i am facing now is that, all previously searched terms are still there when i click on the drop down arrow in search ...
147 votes
5 answers
169k views

var/cache/apt/archives occupying huge space

I am in the process of cleaning up my system. And I see a lot of space occupied by this folder /var/cache/apt/archives (1.5GB). Is it absolutely necessary to keep all these archives?
0 votes
0 answers
215 views

Preparing my work laptop for returning

I want to give my work laptop back to my employer. It has Ubuntu installed on it. I would like to create a new admin user with a new password and delete my current user (the only one the system has) - ...
0 votes
0 answers
64 views

How to cleanup multiple failed installations?

I tried a few different times to install Blender in my WSL Ubuntu 20.04 terminal. I think I finally found a good write-up with instructions for a tar.xz file, but when I try to launch it I get anerror:...
0 votes
1 answer
405 views

18.04 leftover files in snaps

Something's eating up file system space so I'm trying to clean up. I was also considering upgrading to 22.04.1 but I'm not sure having looked through this site. Right now I don't have enough free ...
0 votes
1 answer
35 views

GUI App from REPO to deleting config files of removed packages

Im looking for a gtk gui application from official repository to deleting config files of removed packages. BleachBit dont offer this. Ubuntu-Cleaner is perfect but isnt in official repositories. I ...
1 vote
3 answers
1k views

How can I remove the Additional Drivers application present within the Applications Menu

My machine requires no additional drivers, however I cannot remove this application [additional drivers] neither did I install it. I tried the following: Removing it via the Ubuntu Software center, ...
1 vote
0 answers
157 views

22.04 load-from-cold using much less space than 20.04 to 22.04 upgrade

I need to determine which approach is going to result in a smaller final disk size, so I tested two scenarios... Install 20.04 server and immediately upgrade to 22.04 -- this used 5.5 GB, even after ...
0 votes
2 answers
1k views

How to do a clean package install after accidentally interrupting the build-essential package installation?

I was installing the build essential package through command line using: sudo apt-get install build-essential After almost 4 minutes and reaching 87% completion, I mistakenly pressed Ctrl+Alt+F12 and ...
0 votes
3 answers
462 views

Install Ubuntu over Windows Vista or reformat the HDD and fresh install?

I'm considering changing from Windows Vista; I just need to know a few things first. I have a Toshiba P100 laptop with Vista preloaded. Unfortunately, it has become corrupted and no longer works. I am ...
0 votes
1 answer
57 views

What to do in the situation of "installed some dependencies to build a package and the build still failed, now left with dependencies I didn't need"?

What to do in the situation of "installed some dependencies to build a package and the build still failed, now left with dependencies I didn't need"? This seems as if it could eventually ...
0 votes
0 answers
33 views

How can I identify and purge unecessary files [duplicate]

I'm running UBUNTU 20.04.3 LTS (Focal Fossa). I have a disk usage issue and I cant find the location or identify what is consuming my disk space using the Disk Usage Analyzer. I know that it's located ...
7 votes
2 answers
7k views

Why should I regularly run 'apt-get update' and similar commands? [duplicate]

I am completely new to Ubuntu. A friend recommended me to frequently run the following commands: sudo apt-get upgrade sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get autoremove sudo apt-get autoclean He said that ...
29 votes
2 answers
15k views

Reset MS Teams completely

I used Microsoft Teams (Linux) few months back with an organizational account. Now I want to use it with some other account. I'm currently in logged out state since I don't have access to the org ...
13 votes
3 answers
11k views

How to clean caches in my homedir

My home directory is getting huge (100GB plus). When backupping it I notices that there are quite some caches there. Which important caches are there in my homedir and how should I clean them? One ...
-1 votes
1 answer
380 views

How to clean up or format a disk after shred command is executed

I have a system with a mounted drive, we have ran the shred command and now the disk is showing as 100% used. How do I clean up or format the disk now? So that it can be reused.
5 votes
1 answer
3k views

Why 600MB of "BrowserMetrics"?

In ./chromium/common/chromium/BrowserMetrics, I find over 100 files named like BrowserMetrics-60B60603-3D7326.pma, collectively over 600MB, all dating to the past ~5 days. [That's in addition to ./...
26 votes
4 answers
26k views

Cleaning up my Home Directory

I have the following problem, I've installed a bunch of Ubuntu packages ever since I used Ubuntu, now I've removed these packages using the Synaptic Package Manager but somehow it still left hidden ...
0 votes
0 answers
167 views

kfd kfd: kgd2kfd_probe failed

I am new to Ubuntu . I just cleaned up the computer and when I wanted to start it , it won’t start .when I checked , one of the rams was not in his place, but it’s not working .Takes forever to boot , ...
1 vote
0 answers
553 views

How to clean up files in a systemd privatetmp tmp folder

I am supporting a Web App that writes files to /tmp. This runs in Nginx via systemd with the default nginx systemd config file that has PrivateTmp=yes set. That makes a private systemd-private-* ...
0 votes
2 answers
64 views

How to check the files of an installed application?

I installed FileZilla, gnome-sushi, Cisco anyconnect etc, but my Downloads folder is full of Folders of those applications, I want to start a cleanup process by removing folders in the Downloads ...
1 vote
1 answer
148 views

Clear Ubuntu for another person

I have been working on a laptop which has Ubuntu 18.04 for OS for couple of years. During that period, I have been also using that same laptop for personal things, had installed Viber and couple of ...
3 votes
2 answers
11k views

How do I run BleachBit from the terminal?

On their website, they say to simply enter bleachbit --(argument here) but all that does is open the program. Am I doing something wrong?
115 votes
2 answers
335k views

What is the advantage of using sudo apt-get autoremove over a cleaner app?

I'm not sure what sudo apt-get autoremove does, but have read that you should use this command to remove any unnecessary packages. One of the processes I saw was to use sudo apt-get autoremove and ...
1 vote
0 answers
1k views

What is /home/me/.local/share/flatpak and how to remove it?

I have a pretty small Ubuntu 20 LTE install. It is essential that it is small, however fully functional with LibreOffice, Thunderbird, etc. I have noticed recently that /home/me/.local/share/flatpak ...
0 votes
0 answers
34 views

bring back to life old workstation - make workstation great again?

at work I inherited an old workstation that runs 18.04. It has been used for a couple of years by different people which have installed/uninstalled/modified god knows what and the result is a ...
0 votes
0 answers
21 views

Where is the place of other 40 MB that git installation used on my hdd? [duplicate]

After I did: apt install git terminal said that: After this operation, 43.3 MB of additional disk space will be used. I agreed. After installation I did: df -h and saw that 43.3 MB was really used. ...
0 votes
0 answers
662 views

/dev/sda1: clean, xxxxx files, xxxxx blocks

I wanted to install Crossover application by following guidelines from linuxhelp.com and once I got an error I ran apt-get -f install. Then I shut it down and when I wanted to run on the came up and I ...
0 votes
2 answers
185 views

What is the purpose of .desktop files?

I installed Ardour 6.0.2 on Ubuntu 20.04. It apparently created and placed a ardourxxxxx.desktop file on my desktop. What's the deal with these files? Is it a shortcut? Should/Can I erase it? The ...
0 votes
1 answer
315 views

Ubuntu Gnome: No such file or directory [remove steam]

The intention was to remove steam 1st: sudo apt-get remove steam [if steam was installed via terminal] 2nd: rm -rf ~/.local/share/Steam && rm -rf ~/.steam [remove steam dependencies] But I ...
1 vote
3 answers
5k views

How can I remove the Epic Games Launcher Icon from the Application Menu?

I recently installed Lutris --> Fortnite --> Epic Games --> and selected create shortcut to Applications Menu as opposed to Desktop for the Epic Games Launcher, Fornite worked briefly but the ...
1 vote
1 answer
4k views

Ubuntu get stuck at "/dev/sda6: clean" message with some number on bootup. Help!

I executed sudo apt autoremove in cmd and restarted the pc. After that it gets stuck at this message /dev/sda6: clean, 509610/4071424" files, 7994479/16284672 blocks
4 votes
1 answer
2k views

Possible values for Autocleaninterval for APT::Periodic::AutocleanInterval "0";

I want to set up autoclean on Ubuntu 14.04. I found out that we can adjust the Autocleaninterval from "0" to "7" to do a weekly cleaning. I wanted to confirm how I can adjust it to ...