How to clean up system partition ?

[ronshor]

The size of my system partition is 48GB.
46GB are in use !!
I have know idea how it got to that level.
I have two users (one for guests that has virtual machine on it that takes 7GB)

Now, before upgrading to 16.04 I want to clean up unnecessary files without erasing my firefox and chrome cache and history (which I don't believe takes that much space anyway)

Does anybody know how to do it and why there isn't any system tool to take care of that ?

[Qqmike]

I have used the package called Bleachbit (you can get it through Muon, for example--it is in the repositories). You can have Bleachbit run clean, autoremove, and autoclean. And/or, you could run those last 3 commands at Konsole, too. (I think one of them may be redundant, maybe clean, not sure). I think Snowhog is on top of some of this, too, and he may see your post. Just a basic caveat: Using Bleachbit or ANY clean-up package could result in unexpected changes to your system! I have not had any problems yet, though.

[oshunluvr]

Start with removing all kernels except the one you're using and one older (for backup) and all associated files (headers, etc.). This is the most common source of excess. Open a terminal and type ls /boot to see how many you have installed.

[Snowhog]

The size of my system partition is 48GB.
46GB are in use !!
I have know idea how it got to that level.

The most common way that this happens, is not doing housecleaning on your system. By that, I mean opening a konsole and runing:

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

You can learn what each of these do by, again, in a konsole, typing: man apt-get and reviewing what clean, autoclean, and autoremove do.

[ronshor]

I tried the clean commands and it cleaned up 7GB.
Now the ls/boot for the old kernels gives me this

ron@ron-Vostro-270:~$ ls /boot
abi-3.13.0-135-generic config-3.5.0-54-generic memtest86+.bin System.map-3.5.0-54-generic
abi-3.13.0-137-generic grub memtest86+.elf vmlinuz-3.13.0-135-generic
abi-3.5.0-54-generic initrd.img-3.13.0-135-generic memtest86+_multiboot.bin vmlinuz-3.13.0-137-generic
config-3.13.0-135-generic initrd.img-3.13.0-137-generic System.map-3.13.0-135-generic vmlinuz-3.5.0-54-generic
config-3.13.0-137-generic initrd.img-3.5.0-54-generic System.map-3.13.0-137-generic
ron@ron-Vostro-270:~$

Before I try the Bleachbit. Can someone instruct me what I should do with the old kernels ?

[oshunluvr]

That's only three kernels, so nothing there is kill a lot of space. Although, I can't imagine why 3.5 is on there (2012 kernel) and you are not updated to the current kernel for 14.04 (3.16), but that's a different issue. I guess you upgraded this install from 12.04 to 14.04? That would explain the 3.5 kernel. I doubt it's bootable so you could remove that one;

sudo apt purge 3.5.0-54

should dump that kernel and it's associated files.

Let's get a better look at your system as a whole. Do this command and post the results;

sudo du -hx --max-depth=1 /

[chimak111]

If you're going to use bleachbit, make very sure you know what you've selected for cleaning.

sudo apt-get autoclean will only remove files from /var/cache/apt/archives for applications that are no longer present on your system.

sudo apt-get clean is more effective in recovering space. It will remove all files from /var/cache/apt/archives except a "lock" file which is small and shouldn't be removed in any case.

As for kernels, I wouldn't bother at this time. As mentioned, the oldest is probably a hangover from when you upgraded to 14.04.

Running sudo apt-get autoremove when prompted should normally keep your kernels in control. If you have doubts about what the command is suggesting should be removed, post the contents here for people to guide you.

sudo du -hx --max-depth=1 / may take some time to complete, so don't panic

[ronshor]

That's only three kernels, so nothing there is kill a lot of space. Although, I can't imagine why 3.5 is on there (2012 kernel) and you are not updated to the current kernel for 14.04 (3.16), but that's a different issue. I guess you upgraded this install from 12.04 to 14.04? /[/B]

Yes. I did upgrade from 12.04 to 14.04 and now after the clean up I'm gonna upgrade to 16.04.

ron@ron-Vostro-270:~$ sudo du -hx --max-depth=1 /
[sudo] password for ron: 
692M    /lib
12K     /media
4.0K    /mnt
12M     /sbin
268M    /opt
9.6M    /bin
8.0K    /.config
115M    /boot
3.2G    /root
80K     /tmp
16K     /lost+found
8.4G    /usr
1.8G    /var
4.0K    /cdrom
4.0K    /srv
181M    /etc
4.0K    /lib64
22G     /home
37G     /
ron@ron-Vostro-270:~$

I'm posting the ls /boot again because it looked like a mess the first time

ron@ron-Vostro-270:~$ ls /boot
abi-3.13.0-135-generic     config-3.5.0-54-generic        memtest86+.bin                 System.map-3.5.0-54-generic
abi-3.13.0-137-generic     grub                           memtest86+.elf                 vmlinuz-3.13.0-135-generic
abi-3.5.0-54-generic       initrd.img-3.13.0-135-generic  memtest86+_multiboot.bin       vmlinuz-3.13.0-137-generic
config-3.13.0-135-generic  initrd.img-3.13.0-137-generic  System.map-3.13.0-135-generic  vmlinuz-3.5.0-54-generic
config-3.13.0-137-generic  initrd.img-3.5.0-54-generic    System.map-3.13.0-137-generic
ron@ron-Vostro-270:~$

[ronshor]

sudo du -hx --max-depth=1 / may take some time to complete, so don't panic

Good advice !!!

[oshunluvr]

For comparision and discussion. here's my output of the du command;

root@office:~# du -hx --max-depth=1 /
18M /etc
0 /media
2.0G /var
17M /bin
139M /boot
760M /lib
12K /lib64
0 /mnt
3.0G /opt
15M /root
12M /sbin
0 /srv
125M /tmp
13G /usr
0 /cdrom
4.0M /lib32
18G /

I noticed a couple things right away:
Your /home is not separate.
Your root user has A LOT of stuff in it's folder.
Your /etc folder is huge in comparison, but not really large in a storage sense.

Your total now of 37G minus 22G for home and minus the 3GB in root leaves 12GB for your install, which is smallish IMO. With only 10GB free (13GB if you clean out /root), you may not have enough to do an LTS-to-LTS upgrade. A lot has changed (everything really) in two years. Here's my advice:

#1) If you have the capacity (another drive or partition), move your /home off of the installation partition. It will create a ton of room, makes backing up your personal data easier, and is safer for your data.
#2) Consider a new install instead of the upgrade. This will ensure you have a "clean start" for your new OS and will remove all those left over configs and whatever else has been hanging around for half-a-decade. Frankly, if you still have configs effecting your software from 2012, you're not doing yourself any favors.
#3) Wait until June and jump right to Kubuntu 18.04. Why start out two years behind? There have been a lot of improvements since 2016.
#4) If you really want the 16.04 base for stability reasons, consider KDEneon instead of Kubuntu. You can't do a direct upgrade to it (new install only), but it's based on the same core as Kubuntu 16.04 but faster releases of new KDE/Plasma packages. The result is 2016 stability with 2018 freshness. The KDEneon team will eventually move to 18.04, but they aren't in a hurry so you may have an upgrade to 18.04 using KDEneon later in the summer.

If you really can't or just won't follow any of the above advice, at least take a look at what is in /root. There really shouldn't be much in there except root level scripts or other custom items. The extra stuff in /etc is probably other left over configuration items from 12.04 and other programs you removed. Moving forward, I suggest using "purge" instead of "remove" when uninstalling packages. It'll keep things cleaner.

[ronshor]

For comparision and discussion. here's my output of the du command;
I noticed a couple things right away:
Your /home is not separate.
Your root user has A LOT of stuff in it's folder.
Your /etc folder is huge in comparison, but not really large in a storage sense.

Your total now of 37G minus 22G for home and minus the 3GB in root leaves 12GB for your install, which is smallish IMO. With only 10GB free (13GB if you clean out /root), you may not have enough to do an LTS-to-LTS upgrade. A lot has changed (everything really) in two years. Here's my advice:

#1) If you have the capacity (another drive or partition), move your /home off of the installation partition. It will create a ton of room, makes backing up your personal data easier, and is safer for your data.
#2) Consider a new install instead of the upgrade. This will ensure you have a "clean start" for your new OS and will remove all those left over configs and whatever else has been hanging around for half-a-decade. Frankly, if you still have configs effecting your software from 2012, you're not doing yourself any favors.
#3) Wait until June and jump right to Kubuntu 18.04. Why start out two years behind? There have been a lot of improvements since 2016.
#4) If you really want the 16.04 base for stability reasons, consider KDEneon instead of Kubuntu. You can't do a direct upgrade to it (new install only), but it's based on the same core as Kubuntu 16.04 but faster releases of new KDE/Plasma packages. The result is 2016 stability with 2018 freshness. The KDEneon team will eventually move to 18.04, but they aren't in a hurry so you may have an upgrade to 18.04 using KDEneon later in the summer.

If you really can't or just won't follow any of the above advice, at least take a look at what is in /root. There really shouldn't be much in there except root level scripts or other custom items. The extra stuff in /etc is probably other left over configuration items from 12.04 and other programs you removed. Moving forward, I suggest using "purge" instead of "remove" when uninstalling packages. It'll keep things cleaner.

I used Bleachbit and it cleaned up a few more GB, so now I have 15GB free.
Is that going to be enough for an upgrade to 16.04?

As for your other comments about my system :
Something probably went wrong when I installed Ubuntu 12.04 years ago and my home folder was left on my system folder. Since there's now easy way to fix this (GUI...) I left it that way and it never bothered me. My other partition and other disk are on /media and I have control over them from the GUI.

If you know of an easy way to move the Home folder than I'm open to hear about it.

I moved to Kubuntu from Ubuntu and installed it from the terminal so I have both of them on my machine (not that I need or ever went back to Ubuntu ) so maybe that's the reason for the mess I have on my root user and /etc

The reason I'm not that thrilled about doing a new install is beacause I don't have enough time now to download all my programs again and then configure them to my needs. I know that with Firefox I can save my profile but with other programs I will probably have to do a lot of work .
Maybe I'll do it in the future when I have more time.

And you are right. I'm interested in 16.04 for the the stability.
I read about the KDEneon you recommended and it sounds interesting. When I have time to do a new install I'll consider this but I'm also considering Linux Mint KDE. What do you think will be better for me ?

[mr_raider]

And you are right. I'm interested in 16.04 for the the stability.
I read about the KDEneon you recommended and it sounds interesting. When I have time to do a new install I'll consider this but I'm also considering Linux Mint KDE. What do you think will be better for me ?

MInt KDE is EOL. 18.x is the last edition and going forward, 19.x will not have a KDE edition.

I suspect you have a lot of stuff in root trash.

try these commands:

sudo -i

ls /root/.local/share/Trash/

[ronshor]

MInt KDE is EOL. 18.x is the last edition and going forward, 19.x will not have a KDE edition.

Where did you hear about this ?
I searched google and couldn't find anything about it

[Qqmike]

Googled on the string:
Mint KDE to end soon
and got this:
On End of Linux Mint KDE Edition
http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/106004

[Snowhog]

And on blog.linuxmint.com: https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3418