Free up rootfs space
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Some instructions here may cause serious problems. When unsure, see General precautions Backing up your data is recommended. In case of trouble you might need to re-flash your device. |
Here's a simple howto for those suffering from lack of space in rootfs. The first suggestion is more of a temporary matter, for example to get enough space to install an update, but it's also the fastest and easiest. The suggestions are in order of potential threat to operating system. Least dangerous first and the most dangerous last. The rest are more permanent (and thus more useful), but they require root access.
Listing rootfs space on your device
Use this command to determine how much rootfs space is allocated, used, and available on your device.
df -h /
If you want to see all filesystems, use only "df -h".
Disable Extras-testing, Extras-devel, and/or any other third party repositories
Simply check the disabled box and save in the Application Manager's catalogues menu. Wait for app manger to update the lists. This only helps if you actually had these repositories enabled.
Disabling extras-testing and extras-devel will (currently) give you an extra 5 MB in rootfs
Clear apt cache
Run following command (has to be done as root)
apt-get clean
Remove unused dependencies
Run following command (has to be done as root)
apt-get autoremove
List of big and rarely used files
You can't just delete these files, this is just a list with ideas! You have to know what you are going to do with them (optify, backup+remove, etc.).
- /usr/lib/locale/locale-archive (28 MB)
- /usr/share/locale (10 MB, but you have to keep at least the languages you use)
- /usr/share/themes/alpha and /beta (they use 5-6 MB each, keep the one you use)
- /usr/share/fonts/arabic and /chinese (2,5 MB less for people who don't speak those two languages)
Move apt cache outside of rootfs
If you run into a problem while using apt-get you can temporarily (for one command only) have the apt cache outside rootfs to be able to download larger deb files.
Create a download folder on the eMMC to be used for the downloaded packages instead of the default apt archive folder.
mkdir -p /home/user/MyDocs/apt-archive-cache/archives/partial
Now execute apt-get with the -o option as root:
apt-get -o dir::cache=/home/user/MyDocs/apt-archive-cache <command>
for <command> you can enter the command you normally would use after apt-get.
Examples:
apt-get -o dir::cache=/home/user/MyDocs/apt-archive-cache dist-upgrade apt-get -o dir::cache=/home/user/MyDocs/apt-archive-cache install <package>
Optify Python
If you have installed python or a python program before it was optified, you can optify it with this method. First open a console, then type the following commands as root:
apt-get install pymaemo-optify apt-get clean
When the program is installed, type df -h in the xterm to see if it worked. The output should now contain lines similar to this one:
/opt/pymaemo/usr/lib/python2.5
2064208 471712 1487640 24% /usr/lib/python2.5
Remove non-optified packages
If you have installed programs from extras-devel, third party repositories or rarely, but possible, extras-testing, the programs might not be properly optified. Removing these might help with rootfs space.
You can free space by uninstalling applications that you do not need. A problem is if you do not know how these applications are called. To find it out:
- Open a console
- Start the application that you do not need
- In the Terminal/console, type:
ps -ef
You get a listing of all running processes, including the application you just started. To find out what package an application belongs to, enter
dpkg --search $(which processname)
Source: http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=468063&postcount=1
Custom scripts
Script to free up space on rootfs
This script will move some unnecessary files on rootfs to /home/opt/ to free up space on rootfs.
BEWARE: Icon Label Issue May Occur. http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=654384#post654384
First, create a file, move-to-opt.sh for example, containing this script:
#!/bin/sh # Nokia N900 Maemo 5 Script to free up space on rootfs # ignoring errors when creating dirs that may already exist # Moving ?? icons to /home/opt mkdir -p /home/opt/usr/share/icons 2> /dev/null cp -r /usr/share/icons/* /home/opt/usr/share/icons rm -r /usr/share/icons ln -s /home/opt/usr/share/icons /usr/share/icons # Moving video on start-up to /home/opt mkdir -p /home/opt/usr/share/hildon-welcome 2> /dev/null cp -r /usr/share/hildon-welcome/* /home/opt/usr/share/hildon-welcome rm -r /usr/share/hildon-welcome ln -s /home/opt/usr/share/hildon-welcome /usr/share/hildon-welcome # ?? mkdir -p /home/opt/usr/share/pixmaps 2> /dev/null cp -r /usr/share/pixmaps/* /home/opt/usr/share/pixmaps rm -r /usr/share/pixmaps ln -s /home/opt/usr/share/pixmaps /usr/share/pixmaps # Moving 'apt cache' to /home/opt - Valid until Bug 5746 is fixed. mkdir -p /home/opt/var/cache/apt 2> /dev/null cp -r /var/cache/apt/* /home/opt/var/cache/apt rm -r /var/cache/apt ln -s /home/opt/var/cache/apt /var/cache/apt # Moving locales Source mv /usr/share/locale /opt ln -s /opt/locale /usr/share/locale
Set the script's permission for executable:
chmod +x move-to-opt.sh
(note that this step will - without warning you in any way - not work on partitions which are only fat formatted, as maybe your micro sd card will initially be; in such a case, move the script somewhere else)
Run the script as root:
./move-to-opt.sh
Script to safely free space on rootfs
This script shows you how much space will be freed and automatically detects whether some directories have already been moved.
BEWARE: Icon Label Issue May Occur. http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=654384#post654384
Move some of the pre-installed applications into /opt
Some applications like Nokia Maps and the microb-engine are placed in /usr/share taking up valuable root space, moving these files will not affect the apps. Moving Nokia Maps (has to be done as root) will save 8.7 Mb:
mv /usr/share/nokia-maps /home/opt/ ln -s /home/opt/nokia-maps /usr/share/nokia-maps
Moving the microb-engine (has to be done as root) will save 13.9 Mb:
mv /usr/share/microb-engine /home/opt ln -s /home/opt/microb-engine /usr/share/microb-engine
Moving the "Getting started" app/tutorial (has to be done as root):
mv /usr/share/tutorial-applet /home/opt ln -s /home/opt/tutorial-applet /usr/share/tutorial-applet
Move themes
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This may cause problems when changing themes, and reversing it is NOT possible unless the device is reflashed |
Add the following into the script above OR add into another script (with #!/bin/sh at the start)
# Moving themes to /home/opt mkdir -p /home/opt/usr/share/themes 2> /dev/null cp -r /usr/share/themes/* /home/opt/usr/share/themes rm -r /usr/share/themes ln -s /home/opt/usr/share/themes /usr/share/themes
See rootfs usage per package
This script [1] outputs a list of all packages in rootfs and their size therein. I can not vouch for its validity but it seemed decent enough. "python pkgsize.py checkpkgs | sort -n" gives you a sorted result in bytes. Most of these files are supposed to be there but it might help you find some non optified ones.
from [2]