Full hard drive /var/tmp/portage

[Bullet Dodger]

I'm a bit of a newby to gentoo, but i've been playing with it for about a year now.

I installed it on my puter and the only problem i ever had was when the hd got full. Funny things happen when the hd gets full.
I was told this was a problem with the ReiserFS i used na dthat if i had used an ext2/3 partition, there is space reserved for root. so at boot time there is always space left for the boot process. So i accepted this explination.

I recently got a new puter and installed gentoo. This time using ext2 and 3 partions. i've got two 200Gb HDs, but i was a bit stingy wid space and put WinXP on 5Gb and gentoo on a total of about 5Gb. The idea was to have to OSes in about 5Gb and use the rest as and when needed.

Anyways. Gentoo grew. and filled the HD. and again funny things happened. i then realised what i'd been told about the ext2/3 reserving space for root so this problem wouldn't happen was a lod or rubbish. when you install a now app through portage you've got to be root!
(can't believe i missed that) anyways. i when for a ful reinstall and instead of using the minimal partitions structure recomended in the gnetoo handboot (/ /boot and swap) i went for a full blown lots of partitions.

BUT again gentoo grew. This time tho the "funny effect" were not as bad. I can still boot and use gentoo. but emerge isn't working.

I found the problem was my /var partions. 5Gb was now full! I checked this and found nearly all of the 5Gb was in /var/tmp. I'm now in the process of making a new partion and moving /var/tmp there. but in doing this i've notice most of the data in /var/tmp is in /var/tmp/portage. what is this any why is it so bit? do i need it? my definition of a tmp folder is one i can delete without and adverse effects. can i remove it? will it come back? do i ned it?

cheers.


an found it's the best distro i've come accross. I've recently got a new puter and installed it on that.

/var/tmp portage

[i92guboj]

Seems that need to clean a bit your temp directories. Particularly, your can safely remove EVERYTHING under /tmp and /var/tmp without any problem. You can emerge tmpwatch and set a cron job to do that for you when files has not been accessed in some time.

Also, you should keep an eye on /var/log, since many logs (like the emerge one) can grow very much with the time.

[ellotheth]

/var/tmp/portage is where portage puts its temporary compile-time work files. It can get enormous, depending on what it's doing (emerging OpenOffice, for example). You can safely empty it whenever portage isn't compiling.

[EDIT]
While I'm on the topic: You'll want to keep an eye on disk space available to /var/tmp/portage; if there's not enough, your emerge operations will fail. (As I learned, seven hours into an OpenOffice emerge.)
[/EDIT]
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monjoy

[pjp]

SA1: Running out of disk space
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Quis separabit? Quo animo?

[Bullet Dodger]

Thanks for all the advice.
I was emergeing oo at the time.

Got it all sorted now
Cheers.