can I move /usr/src files?

[ayu]

My /usr/src folder occupies almost 10% of my 10GB harddrive, containing useless(?) files from kernel 2.6.20 etc. Can I move them to an external drive, and if necessary, copy them back when needed? Can I do this with just the file explorer, or is there some apt command I should run instead? Or is there a zip/deb archive of these files somewhere else that I can save instead, and delete everything in the src folder?

Thanks,
Ayu

[CatKiller]

Crikey, how many kernels have you got installed? My /usr/src comes in at 54.5 MB.

If you've got loads of old kernels that you aren't using any more, you can remove them in Synaptic. This will also automatically remove them from GRUB's menu.lst. If everything's currently working OK, you only need to keep the latest kernel. It should go without mentioning that you shouldn't remove all the kernels but I'll mention it anyway, just in case.

Deleting system files willy-nilly is a Bad Plan. Use the package manager for minimal breakage.

[Cypher]

First run this on the command line

uname -a

which will tell you what version of the Kernel you are currently running. Now in your /usr/src directory you should only keep the "linux-headers" directory for the Kernel you are currently running.

On my Jaunty installation, I'm at 2.6.28-15 and so in my /usr/src directory I have "linux-headers-2.6.28-15" and "linux-headers-2.6.28-15-generic".

I can see the amount of space being taken from these two directories with

cd /usr/src
du -sch

I have

64M linux-headers-2.6.28-15
7.7M linux-headers-2.6.28-15-generic

You will want to keep this directory around if some application wants to build something specific to your Kernel, everything else is probably extraneous and can be removed.

Just to be on the safe side though, you should list what's in that directory so that we can tell you it's safe to remove it and there's likely a APT/DBKG command to remove it properly..

Regards

[itsbrad212]

try:

sudo nautalis

then navigate to the directory using the GUI (be careful, you'll be root!

[ayu]

If you've got loads of old kernels that you aren't using any more, you can remove them in Synaptic. This will also automatically remove them from GRUB's menu.lst.

So if in Synaptic I just choose to remove linux-headers*, this will both clear the header files in /usr/src and clean up menu.lst?

Deleting system files willy-nilly is a Bad Plan. Use the package manager for minimal breakage.

Are these files actively being used or are the src files only needed when installing something?

I have no clue how it works. I would have thought 1) Download zip 2) Unzip into /usr/src 3) Compile and install exe somewhere else

But I guess I still need the newest source file lying around?

You will want to keep this directory around if some application wants to build something specific to your Kernel, everything else is probably extraneous and can be removed.

Just to be on the safe side though, you should list what's in that directory so that we can tell you it's safe to remove it and there's likely a APT/DBKG command to remove it properly..

du -sh /usr/src/*
75M	/usr/src/alsa
56M	/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.20-15
56M	/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.20-16
56M	/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.22-10
56M	/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.22-9
58M	/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.24-18
43M	/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.27-7
43M	/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.27-9
64M	/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.28-11
7.6M	/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.28-11-generic
305M	/usr/src/linux-source-2.6.20
55M	/usr/src/linux-source-2.6.28.tar.bz2
8.0M	/usr/src/nvidia-180.44
52K	/usr/src/rpm
0	/usr/src/vboxdrv-3.0.6
0	/usr/src/vboxnetadp-3.0.6
0	/usr/src/vboxnetflt-3.0.6

Thanks for all your help!

Ayu

[Diabolis]

This will remove all the uneeded packages, including old kernels.

sudo apt-get autoremove

linux-headers are the headers files used to compile the kernel and some other applications. You don't need them if you are not going to compile anything from source.

Just remove them with this:

sudo apt-get remove linux-headers

[pedro3005]

You can get rid of them, i think the following command will do:

sudo apt-get purge linux-headers-2.6.20-15 linux-headers-2.6.20-16 linux-headers-2.6.22-10 linux-headers-2.6.22-9
linux-headers-2.6.27-7 linux-headers-2.6.27-9 linux-headers-2.6.24-18

You should wait for someone else to approve it though, as i'm not sure.

[fela]

My /usr/src is just 19MB. That's with kernel headers...no kernel source though as my current kernel is absolutely fine.

[Diabolis]

You can get rid of them, i think the following command will do:

sudo apt-get purge linux-headers-2.6.20-15 linux-headers-2.6.20-16 linux-headers-2.6.22-10 linux-headers-2.6.22-9
linux-headers-2.6.27-7 linux-headers-2.6.27-9 linux-headers-2.6.24-18

You should wait for someone else to approve it though, as i'm not sure.

There is no need to specify every single package, since they are not used they will be removed. And it should be --purge not purge, which is not needed either, that argument is used to completely remove a program, this means uninstall and delete configuration files, but a kernel doesn't have that.

[CatKiller]

So if in Synaptic I just choose to remove linux-headers*, this will both clear the header files in /usr/src and clean up menu.lst?

Yes. But only remove the ones that you definitely don't need. You'll probably also want to remove the corresponding Linux images if you have those installed too.

Are these files actively being used or are the src files only needed when installing something?

They're pulled in by the nVidia driver. I have no idea if they're still needed after the install to make the nVidia driver work. You'd have to ask them.

Given that the nvidia-glx package depends on nvidia-kernel-source, which in turn depends on linux-headers, removing the last set of headers will, in all likelihood, also remove your nVidia driver.

Personally, I would use Synaptic to remove them rather than the command line as a new user.

EDIT: Actually, never mind the headers. It's the fact that you've got the whole Linux source in there that's taking up all the room. Why did you install that? Is it something you need to keep?