Tools to Keep Your Drive Free of Detritus

downhill

--- Bleachbit ---

Install bleachbit from the repos:

sudo eopkg it bleachbit

Drop to the command line and enter:

sudo -i bleachbit

Since this is the first time you've ran bleachbit as superuser, you should be presented with the Preferences window. For those who already have bleachbit installed, Preferences is under Edit in the bleachbit menu bar.

Click the Languages tab under the Preferences window and insure that your preferred language is checked. Click the Close button in the Preferences window.

In the left panel of the bleachbit main window, scroll down and check the checkbox for Localizations under the System category. Click the checkbox for other desired cleaning categories, although I would advise leaving the following unchecked:

all items under the Deep scan and journald categories
Rotated logs under the System category

Now click Preview from the bleachbit icon bar to see what will get deleted. Go ahead and click Clean from the bleachbit icon bar. Here's what recently got deleted when I ran Clean:

What happens is that bleachbit removes app language packages except for the languages checked under the Languages tab under the Preferences window. I read, speak, and write in English, so I don't need all of the other language packages that get installed for apps.

Running bleachbit as regular user will also keep your drive free of detritus. You should be able to figure out how to use bleachbit as regular user with a little bit of experimentation. The biggest drive space savings will come from running bleachbit as superuser and checking the Localizations option.

--- eopkg dc ---

I installed Solus Budgie on my desktop computer back in February. Over the weekend, I also installed Solus Budgie on my laptop. I observed that the installation on my laptop only took up over 8gb of disk space, while the installation on my desktop was taking up over 13gb of disk space. H-m-m-m...same installation, why 5gb of additional space on my desktop drive?

I then remembered seeing eopkg cached files when I was looking through /var awhile back on my desktop. I wrongly assumed that old packages were removed when newer versions were installed. So I did a little bit of investigation of the eopkg commands and discovered that eopkg dc will remove cached system and program files, as well as temporary files stored under /var.

So I ran

sudo eopkg dc

and following was the result:

Cleaning package cache /var/cache/eopkg/packages... Cleaning source archive cache /var/cache/eopkg/archives... Cleaning temporary directory /var/eopkg... Removing cache file /var/cache/eopkg/installdb.cache... Removing cache file /var/cache/eopkg/componentdb.cache... Removing cache file /var/cache/eopkg/groupdb.cache... Removing cache file /var/cache/eopkg/sourcedb.cache... Removing cache file /var/cache/eopkg/packagedb.cache...

Solus Budgie is now only occupying just over 8gb of space on my desktop, about 5gb of space savings.

The only caveat about using eopkg dc is that you may not be able to roll back to a previous update if you later find out that an updated package is causing problems.

Justin

downhill Drop to the command line and enter:

sudo -i bleachbit

Does bleachbit not offer elevation when launched to clear system directories?

brent

The supreme irony here--depending on your POV---is that a simple terminal command cleared up more detritus than bleachbit.

That said, I studied your photo carefully.
Why no journal or deep scan? Too risky?
P.S.-Good write up.

edit: typo

downhill

brent Which terminal command are you referring to? You shouldn't clear journald because it's useful for troubleshooting purposes. The Deep scan option can be slow (based on message presented by bleachbit).

Justin I don't believe so. I'll try to remember to try the Localizations option as regular user after an upgrade in the future and report back here. I learned the tip from a post in the now defunct CrunchBang Linux forums, so have always done it that way.

downhill

Justin No, Bleachbit does not offer elevation; confirmed on my Debian installation.

brent

downhill Hi Downhill, I meant the eopkg command to finish, sorry for any confusion.

downhill

One other minor issue I forgot to mention in my OP about deleting localization files with Bleachbit. When you remove a package(s), you will see errors in yellow text about the missing language packages.

Justin

downhill What a poorly written application 😕

downhill

Justin You're entitled to your opinion, but I disagree. I'd think it's kind of a safety feature, to prevent users from doing something stupid.

Justin

downhill No, they can easily integrate polkit into their application to allow users to elevate from within the application or at startup, it is much cleaner than forcing users to elevate from a Terminal and kind of pushes Linux adoption backwards as people are often afraid of opening a terminal.