[NTLUG:Discuss] / filling up...

[Darin W. Smith]

On Fri, 2003-04-25 at 19:14, Wayne Dahl wrote:

> I checked that and it's where the default is..../var/spool/up2date and
> that's ok because /var is in its own partition and has 1.5 GB free out
> of 2.2 GB.  I know this is going to sound stupid to most of you, but I
> was able to free up over 41 MB's of space in the / directory because
> /root is in that same partition...and I removed all the emails from
> Evolution as the /root user.  Now I hear you saying, "Why are you
> logging onto Evolution as root????"  Keep in mind, I'm a paranoid
> Windoze user who  is used to losing things in Windoze when Scandisk
> doesn't know what to do with a bad file and just puts into a file of its
> own on the hard drive somewhere, usually in / unless you tell it
> otherwise.  I've had a couple of bad experiences with Linux where my
> user accounts were hosed and I couldn't get into them to check email or
> to ask for help, so signing in as / was all I *could* do to access
> Evolution until I could get my problems resolved.  I have the same
> address book and filters in the /root account for Evolution as in my
> regular (Gnome) and test (KDE) accounts.  I'm still trying to decide if
> I want to run Gnome or KDE.  They both have their good points and bad
> points, although I'm sort of leaning towards KDE.
> 

*nix has it's own version of dumping file fragments somewhere, which
happens to be a /lost+found directory on the filesystem in question.

Just get in the habit of keeping root's home directory clean and only
using the root account when you absolutely need to.  It's too easy to
type "rm -rf *" somewhere wrong and forget that you are root.  Or to
walk off and forget to log out of root.

> To answer Darin's question about what I consider to be "major"
> directories...or, I guess the directories that I've put in their own
> partitions, they are as below...and I came up with this list from some
> install guide I found somewhere...can't remember where at this time...
> 
> /		341 Megs
> /boot		53.2 Megs
> /swap		467.6 Megs (this is actually a little smaller than it 			   
> should be, from what I've read as I have 256 Megs 			    Megs of memory
> in this machine, but it seems to 			    work ok.)
> /tmp		1.3 Gigs
> /var		2.2 Gigs
> /opt		3.8 Gigs  I'ved actually used this space to install some 			 
> software to evaluate...like Star Office.
> /usr/local	2.4 Gigs
> /usr/src	2.4 Gigs
> /home		9.1 Gigs
> /usr		9.1 Gigs
> 

Actually, that's a pretty good layout.

> I thought I had a separate partition for /root, but I see I don't, but I
> don't guess that's really a problem.
> 

It's actually a good idea to keep /root on the same partition as /,
since if you have to go into single user mode, you want to have root's
home directory mounted.


> For you Evolution users, is there any way you know of that you can turn
> an email box you have into an archive that Evolution can use later, but
> saves hard drive space?  I haven't seen anything like that in the help
> files for Evolution.
> 

Yes.  They are just standard maildir-style files.  For example:
~/evolution/local/Inbox/mbox is the file containing your Inbox mail. 
All the mail just goes in that one ascii file, just like Netscape or
anything else.  Easy to import into any mail program.  Don't worry about
the other files...those are indices that Evolution uses to make loading
your inbox faster.  They will get generated when you import the
mailboxes in.

I am developing the habit of dropping everything older than 2 months
into a series of "archive" mailboxes, then burning those to CD and
emptying them out from time to time (like every 6 months).  That really
helps keep the email from piling up.

-- 
D!  (Darin W. Smith)
AIM: JediGrover
Gig 'em Ags!
http://www.ebb.org/ungeek/
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GAT/E d? s:+ a- C++ UL++++ P--- L++++ E++ W+ N- o-- K- w--- O- M-- V
PS-- PE+ Y+ PGP+ t+ 5 X+ R tv+ b+ DI+++ D+ G e+++ h+ r !y+
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------