/ out of space - what to do?

[Rick Stevens]

Syl wrote:
>>Try clearing old stuff out of /tmp and /var/log.  Clean up your yum
>>cache ("yum clean all").  As for the rest, do some selective "du -h"
>>operations in various directories under "/", see what's sucking up the
>>space and clean out that which seems appropriate.
> 
> 
> I have done that. /tmp and /var/log are not very big. The culprit seems to
> be packages in /usr/share like xemacs which I never use. I have only been
> installing/removing packages from the 'Add Remove Packages' tool. It no
> longer seems to works properly - now all it does is give me a long list of
> packages that are not installed and tell me that I cannot uninstall the
> packages I requested to be uninstalled.
> 
> How do I manually remove packages like xemacs which I don't use?

"Add/Remove Packages" is badly flawed.  Use

	yum remove name-of-package

and it'll work a lot better.

>>Just another reason it's really a bad idea to have a monolithic "/"
>>filesystem.
> 
> 
> Hmmm - not sure what you mean. /home and /data which are in separate
> partitions.

Yes, but /usr, /var and /tmp are on your root filesystem.  90% of stuff
gets installed in /usr.  Logs fill up /var.  /tmp gets lots of cruft.
Putting them all on one filesystem is not a good idea.  At the very
least, I recommend making /usr a separate filesystem.  Actually, I use
separate file systems for the following:

	/
	/boot (sometimes, but not always)
	swap (always!)
	/usr
	/var
	/home

That's what I set up.  It's based on 20+ years of Unix experience, but
it may not work for you.

Your mileage may vary.  Void where prohibited.  Batteries not included.
Yada, yada.  Do what you will.
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-  Jimmie crack corn and I don't care...what kind of lousy attitude  -
-                 is THAT to have, huh?   -- Dennis Miller           -
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