Detoxing your operating system
Cleanup Crew
© Lead Image © bisgleich, photocase.com
Linux and many Internet services just love logging. To keep your system from putting on too much weight and wasting valuable disk space, we present an effective diet with guaranteed success.
Well-used computers rapidly acquire many files in the depths of the system that you no longer need; additionally, the system accumulates duplicate and multiply stored data. Manually searching for duplicates, temporary files, or orphaned files can be extremely difficult in view of the several hundred thousand files that most popular Linux distributions keep in their storage systems. Armed with a couple of helpers, however, you can quickly deal with any unnecessary clutter and keep your system permanently clean.
Analysis
The starting point of any cleaning action is careful analysis of the data sets. A tool that is particularly suitable for this is a small Java program named JDiskReport that elicits all the necessary information from your hard disk. The program is available as a ZIP archive [1]; just unpack and move the newly created JDiskReport-1.4.1 directory to a suitable place (e.g., /opt). You can then start the software by calling
java -jar /opt/jdiskreport-1.4.1.jar
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Fedora 43 Has Finally Landed
The Fedora Linux developers have announced their latest release, Fedora 43.
-
KDE Unleashes Plasma 6.5
The Plasma 6.5 desktop environment is now available with new features, improvements, and the usual bug fixes.
-
Xubuntu Site Possibly Hacked
It appears that the Xubuntu site was hacked and briefly served up a malicious ZIP file from its download page.
-
LMDE 7 Now Available
Linux Mint Debian Edition, version 7, has been officially released and is based on upstream Debian.
-
Linux Kernel 6.16 Reaches EOL
Linux kernel 6.16 has reached its end of life, which means you'll need to upgrade to the next stable release, Linux kernel 6.17.
-
Amazon Ditches Android for a Linux-Based OS
Amazon has migrated from Android to the Linux-based Vega OS for its Fire TV.
-
Cairo Dock 3.6 Now Available for More Compositors
If you're a fan of third-party desktop docks, then the latest release of Cairo Dock with Wayland support is for you.
-
System76 Unleashes Pop!_OS 24.04 Beta
System76's first beta of Pop!_OS 24.04 is an impressive feat.
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 is Available
Linus Torvalds has announced that the latest kernel has been released with plenty of core improvements and even more hardware support.
-
Kali Linux 2025.3 Released with New Hacking Tools
If you're a Kali Linux fan, you'll be glad to know that the third release of this famous pen-testing distribution is now available with updates for key components.