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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".

If you want to print a list of all directories under rootfs and their cumulative sizes, run the following command (sizes in MB, sorted in ascending order):

du -mx / | sort -n

If you want a comprehensive list of what packages are using what space on rootfs, which will take a little bit of time for your device to prepare, Chris Pitchford has prepared [http://discussions.europe.nokia.com/t5/Maemo-and-MeeGo-Devices/whats-apps-take-a-lots-of-roofts/td-p/715374 a couple of scripts] which will achieve this.

== Freeing up space ==

===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

will release probably near 10 MB.
''In my case, it freed about 250MB of 'home', as shown by 'storageusage' application.''

===Remove unused dependencies===

Run following command (has to be done as root)

apt-get autoremove

===Purge unused configuration files===

Even when you have uninstalled a package it may leave configuration files on your system. Use dpkg to find uninstalled packages with configuration files still in place:

dpkg -l|grep ^rc

Remove the configuration files by purging the packages:

dpkg --purge foo bar

If you don't want to purge all packages with uninstalled configuration files by hand, this line might come handy (as root, or with sudo in xargs):

dpkg -l | grep ^rc | cut -d " " -f 3 | xargs dpkg --purge

===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.).

* <code>/usr/lib/locale/locale-archive</code> (28 MB) : stupid idea : if you do such a thing, you will loose all the constant texts as the names of days ("Monday","Tuesday",...). What kind of advice is this?
* <code>/usr/share/locale</code> (10 MB, but you have to keep at least the languages you use)
* <code>/usr/share/themes/alpha</code> and <code>/beta</code> (they use 5-6 MB each, keep the one you use - REMOVING THESE WILL GENERALLY MESS UP YOUR UI - do not simply remove them with "rm -f $dir" - use "apt-get remove [hildon-theme-alpha|hildon-theme-beta]" Similarly you can reinstall them the same way. Dependency apps: "bluezwitch cherry feedingit google-search-widget hildon-desktop hildon-desktop-python-loader hildon-theme-alpha")
  hildon-theme-beta mp-fremantle-002-pr osso-startup-wizard ovi-promotion-widget)
* <code>/usr/share/fonts/arabic</code> and <code>/chinese</code> (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 defalut 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 <code><command></code> 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 [[Terminal#Opening_the_terminal|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:

* [[Terminal#Opening_the_terminal|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:
<source lang="bash">
#!/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 [https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5746 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 [http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=568370&postcount=11 Source]
mv /usr/share/locale /opt
ln -s /opt/locale /usr/share/locale
</source>
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 microSD 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====

[[User:Tanner#Safely_free_some_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) will save 0.9 Mb:
 mv /usr/share/tutorial-applet /home/opt
 ln -s /home/opt/tutorial-applet /usr/share/tutorial-applet

(With the CSSU - and possibly without on PR1.3 - the tutorial may be uninstalled, getting rid of the tutorial folder entirely)

To get a bit more rootfs space you can move Flashplayer to opt; will save 3.5Mb:
 mv  /usr/lib/browser/plugins/libflashplayer.so /opt/usr/lib/
 ln -s /opt/usr/lib/libflashplayer.so  /usr/lib/browser/plugins/libflashplayer.so

====Move themes====

{{ambox
| type = notice
| text = '''This may cause problems when changing themes, and reversing it is NOT possible unless the device is [[Updating the firmware|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 [http://www.robinhill.me.uk/downloads/pkgsize.py] 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 [http://www.robinhill.me.uk/maemo/package_sizes.html]

Here is another script pkgscan.sh which sort big files on rootfs [http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=442804&postcount=28]

[[Category:Power users]]
[[Category:N900]]
[[Category:Firmware update]]

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Editing Free up rootfs space

@@ Line 68: / Line 68: @@
 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.
+Create a download folder on the eMMC to be used for the downloaded packages instead of the defalut apt archive folder.
   mkdir -p /home/user/MyDocs/apt-archive-cache/archives/partial