[SOLVED] What to remove (in synaptic) for saving space?

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ulf

[SOLVED] What to remove (in synaptic) for saving space?

Post by ulf »

Hello. I tried Linux Mint today for the first time. Except for the fact the volume (audio) is muted by default... :? everything looks really great. How I am using Linux Mint, is as a live-usb. Which I found a short and very good tutorial on how to do, somewhere. The usb stick that I am using right now is relatively small with only 2 GB on it, and when I clicked the open pad lock icon in the tray for doing all recommended updates, I ran out of space on this particual usb stick.

I don't actually want open office and so went in the synaptic package manager and think I manged to remove all open office packages. Then I clicked the open pad lock icon again, but again I ran out of space. So my question is which large packages that may not strictly be necessary, like for example open office, I might remove to free up some space on this usb stick that I am using.

Thank you very much in advance for all and any tips and pointers!

P.S.
Apologies for my English

edit: forgot a word
edit: specifying some
edit: removing word i thought i'd forgotten...
edit: more editing..
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
sadaruwan12

Re: What to remove (in synaptic) for saving space?

Post by sadaruwan12 »

It's u who can decide which to keep and which once to remove just go through the softwares that have been installed as default just make a list of what you want to remove and keep on removing them.

This lick might help you as well it's has been written for ubuntu but it'll be applicable to mint as well due to it's close resemblance. http://my.opera.com/ubuntunerd1/blog/ke ... untu-clean
ulf

Re: What to remove (in synaptic) for saving space?

Post by ulf »

Thank you for replying, and the link, sadaruwan12!

The reason I'm asking for tips about what to remove, is I can't see the file sizes in Synaptic. I happened to know open office is a couple of hundred MB, so I removed that. But what other large packages are not essential for keeping Linux Mint still working?

I will read the page you suggested. Thanks again for your reply.
Biker
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Re: What to remove (in synaptic) for saving space?

Post by Biker »

2GB is pretty small to expect to be able to keep an updated, working distribution on it. Even if you trim it down to the bare necessities, you'll still run into space issues whenever you attempt to update it. Bear in mind, each update is going to download the packages to your flash drive (taking up more space) and then executing, which can take even more space. Something that small would be used as a "temporary" environment where it could be used on any system to do some quick work. I wouldn't expect it use a 2 GB flash drive as my primary distro drive. There's just not enough room.
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sadaruwan12

Re: What to remove (in synaptic) for saving space?

Post by sadaruwan12 »

Biker wrote:2GB is pretty small to expect to be able to keep an updated, working distribution on it. Even if you trim it down to the bare necessities, you'll still run into space issues whenever you attempt to update it. Bear in mind, each update is going to download the packages to your flash drive (taking up more space) and then executing, which can take even more space. Something that small would be used as a "temporary" environment where it could be used on any system to do some quick work. I wouldn't expect it use a 2 GB flash drive as my primary distro drive. There's just not enough room.
You're spot on Mr.Biker it's too small for the updates just use your pen drive installation for your evaluation needs if you find the OS appealing to your needs you can install it on to your hard disk along side any other distribution.
feed3
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Re: What to remove (in synaptic) for saving space?

Post by feed3 »

ulf wrote: I can't see the file sizes in Synaptic.
if i'm not mistaken, the size column in synaptic is where you can see how big certain packages are using your hdd space.

anyway,

open synaptic.
go to settings, then preferences,
click on columns and fonts tab,
make sure you tick the box for installed size. you also can tick the box for download size to see how big the package to download from repo (it is the column of download in synaptic)
piratesmack

Re: What to remove (in synaptic) for saving space?

Post by piratesmack »

I don't think removing anything that was preinstalled would free up space on a live usb.
Squashfs is read-only.

You'd have to extract the squashfs to your hard drive, chroot it, remove packages, and rebuild the squashfs
DrHu

Re: What to remove (in synaptic) for saving space?

Post by DrHu »

I look through what is installed by default, and then decide
--I might also have a look into mintconstructor or remastersys, to see if you wanted to configure the iso before installation
--there are also some, including userland (GUI versions included gtk..) oem tools for reconfiguration of the system..

So, I usually take out
  • samba
  • avahi
  • mono
  • Services I don't need
    bluetooth
    pcmcia (pc-card device support)
    IPP (Internet Printing Protocol)
    --haven't decided on that one yet, however I set my cups server settings for specific users only (local)
--and so on

I add rcconf, so I can see the list of starting services and easily remove them (as for the examples above)
--but when using that type of facility, you have to understand what each service is doing, at least enough to know whether or not it is safe to remove/stop from running on boot
--easily found via an Internet search or maybe how to tweak Ubuntu
distro hopper

Re: What to remove (in synaptic) for saving space?

Post by distro hopper »

I'd remove anything that I know I didn't need.. The list above is a great start though. Another thing you could run, is sudo apt-get clean. It will remove archived .deb files from the cache and free up some space too.
ulf

Re: What to remove (in synaptic) for saving space?

Post by ulf »

Thanks, Biker. I do have an 8 GB pendrive that I'm not using, so I expect that would be better, then, for running Mint as a live usb.

Also, thanks for the various tips on actually removing stuff. Sounds a bit out of my league, so to say, but it's hopefully not going to be necessary, anyway, if I have 8 GB available for Mint.
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