Arch Linux

yvonney

Member

Registered: 2008-06-11

Posts: 671

Removing unneeded installed files:manpages, etc. delete cause problem?

Hi, looking to remove as much as possible due to having a minimalistic install on a very small drive.

Firstly, can files like manpages, and WHATEVER else I can delete be removed without problems?

Secondly, is there any logical way to find/isolate any of these possible files after which they'd be deleted.

I have a small drive install and a USB stick install. i'm thinking that there may be some way(s) to create more space.

thanks!

litemotiv

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2008-08-01

Posts: 5,026

Re: Removing unneeded installed files:manpages, etc. delete cause problem?

manpages and such are not that heavyweight, as long as you avoid gnome/kde dependencies and libraries you should be good. if it's still too much, just get a bigger usb stick, you can get 8GB ones for around $10 these days.

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chpln

Member

From: Australia

Registered: 2009-09-17

Posts: 361

Re: Removing unneeded installed files:manpages, etc. delete cause problem?

For me man and info pages together account for well over 50MB, which, on a small drive, would be valuable space.  I believe the contents of /usr/share/man and /usr/share/info can be removed without problems.

I'd start by poking around with du to see what the main offenders are towards disk use.  For example:

du -c --max-depth=1 /usr/share | sort -n

/usr/share/locales might be another worth cleaning, though be careful not to remove any locales you use.

Last edited by chpln (2010-01-06 22:47:37)

yvonney

Member

Registered: 2008-06-11

Posts: 671

Re: Removing unneeded installed files:manpages, etc. delete cause problem?

extremely good to know both thoughts. Thanks very much. I did think that there wasn't likely all that much I could delete, though I was hopeful that something would be a surprise.  There's certainly nothing big much on my system.

I should be able to run my dream system on a 4 gig stick, EXCEPT for firefox's scrapbooked webpages folders which total about 6 gig, XP in virtualbox 4 gig (optimized) and a Maildir folder i'd hoping to get on an old laptop as a server at some point. The Mail is currently 500 meg though that would go up if I could have a mailserver to dump all other old mails into. Could be a waste of time that, though fun!

So... I've spend hours and hours over the last year thinking. someday I'll be able to have the same versatility of scrapbook in firefox though WITHOUT firefox all the time for my webpage library.

Thanks for reading and commenting!

a 32 gig stick would do everything I'd need.

Last edited by yvonney (2010-01-06 23:18:00)