what to delete in /usr

[Christopher Browne]

On 2/5/06, caitken-Bm8TULXj0r/3fQ9qLvQP4Q at public.gmane.org <caitken-Bm8TULXj0r/3fQ9qLvQP4Q at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Muhammad Imran writes:
>
> <snip>
>
> >> Clearly I need to lighten /usr 's load. What can I delete? The only
> >> programs I really use on the computer are Mozilla and OpenOffice but I
> >> don't want to delete programs that I don't know what they do or that
> >> other programs may rely on...
> >
> > What I would suggest is instead of directly deleting any files from /usr.
> > You go to System Settings > Add/Remove applications (or something similar
> > depending on which distribution u use) and remove any
> > packages/applications that you don't need. Most of the applications
> > install files in /usr so by deleting any unwanted packages you should be
> > able to free up some space.
>
> OK. I removed a couple. Only freed up 1% -- but it's a start.
> >
> > Another option, run this command: du -h /usr
> > this command will tell you how much space each file/directory is using. so
> > u can remove package to which those files belong (if u don't need that
> > package).
>
> Thanks -- unfortunately most of the files I don't recognize to the point
> that I would know if I need them or not.

Then you almost certainly shouldn't touch them.

In any case, the performance difficulty that falls out of having a
disk very nearly full is that WRITING files gets expensive.  It is not
READING them that gets more expensive.

/usr should be very nearly read-only except at times when you are
installing software.  It should be possible to mount it read-only,
most of the time...

Having it very nearly full is bad at upgrade time; it shouldn't injure
performance at other times.
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