Low disk space on /

I am running out of disk space on my root partition! I've only got 2.5GB left (from 10GB). I've already removed any unnecessary packages. How else can I free space from the root drive? Are there any log files I can purge? Can I defragment the ext3 partition? Can I use any compression tools?

Cheers

 

Delete the contents of /tmp

 

Is that safe? Doesn't it get cleared automatically after every reboot?

Cheers

 

It's just a temporary location, like the Temp folder in Windows. You can read more about it here.

 

no, initially i seems like a good idea, but delete anything with caution, generally DO NOT delete anything in /tmp but on the other hand, You are Megaray:

sometimes yes, sometimes no, some distros like mandriva allow you to choose during installation of OS weather or not /tmp is cleared on reboot / boot

but you are better deleting the installed packages archive /var/cache/apt/archives/<packages.deb> or /var/cache/apt/archives/<packages.rpm>, as they are only there for local reinstallation of installed packages but i'd highly recommend saving a list of installed packages before deleting anything, just in case & i'd also backup the installed packages to CD/DVD so you still have a local copy of all installed packages
[ot]if this system has a VIA chipset hit it with a BFH[/ot]

EDIT: BTW: doing this will probably kill apt & i can't find the apt config file, hope you have more luck than me or you could remove all "doc" files & directories unless you need or want them

 

It's safe to delete the contents of /tmp/ as long as you're not in the middle of a big operation that's writing to it. For example, some distros uncompress or execute update scripts in /tmp. So as long as you're not in the middle of something like that, cleaning /tmp should be fine. Of course, in my own case /tmp usually gets its own slice.

Also, 2.5GB is plenty of space left for a root partition. Why do you need more? It's not as if you have a dynamic paging file oozing all over / like The Blob or something... unlike a certain OS, who's name shall not be spoken.

 

I've since discovered that the /tmp drive is cleared automatically in Ubuntu after every reboot so I decided not to tamper with it.

I suppose 2.5GB free space for a / partition should be OK, but I do intend to keep my installation of Ubuntu 8.04 LTS until the next LTS in 2 years. I suppose it all depends on how much space two years worth of upgrades and extra software will take...

Thanks Donkey for your suggestion of deleting the apt cache, but I perform that function by issuing aptitude clean, which is a command I use in my custom upgrade script.