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Thread: Ubuntu Cleaner

  1. #1
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    Ubuntu Cleaner

    I watched a YouTube video about Ubuntu 20.04 recently and the guy mentioned installing Ubuntu Cleaner. I was curious because I had installed Ubuntu for a family member that ran into an issue with so many old kernels that the computer would barely boot up. Most of us know the command to take care of this pretty easily but this guy had no interest in learning commands, he was just a computer user. Mint has tools that remove old kernels but he really likes Ubuntu. Bleach Bit could do the job but there is no way I wanted this guy using it.

    After seeing Ubuntu Cleaner in the video I did a search and found it.

    http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/...ative-janitor/

    The tool seems harmless enough that a new user could clean up their system without trashing it, lol. I wonder why Ubuntu stopped including this kind of tool? Years ago Ubuntu came stock with Computer Janitor or something like that. Ubuntu Tweaks had this feature, this is forked from it. Wouldn't it be a good idea to include this or maybe modernize it a little?

  2. #2
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    Re: Ubuntu Cleaner

    Kernels should be removed automatically. But there are 50+ different ways to install any Linux, so it is possible to setup a system that either has nearly unlimited space for kernels or is really tight on space for kernels. The person who does the install handles that.

    I've never seen the point of cleaning software. Just automate any cleanup in a script that gets run every day - week - month. Put the running of the script into the user's crontab or for system level stuff, put it into one of the crontab /etc/cron.* directories. Daily, weekly, monthly. Easy peasey. Handled.

  3. #3
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    Re: Ubuntu Cleaner

    @ TheFu

    I don't disagree with you. I was mainly referring to new users with no experience. There are claims that more people are moving to Linux for various reasons we won't get into here. My thoughts were about making system maintenance easy for those that install a distro on their own. The guy I used as an example really grew to like Ubuntu, he had used it a few years before he had the issue with a slew of kernels on his system. It took minutes to fix the problem when he brought me his computer. If he had a simple tool he could have solved the problem himself. You and I are experienced users, we take care of this type of thing and never give it a thought.

  4. #4
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    Re: Ubuntu Cleaner

    Years ago, I wrote an article about this stuff.
    https://lifehacker.com/what-kind-of-...nux-pc-5817282
    It is slightly dated by the backup choices, but still relevant for most other stuff.

    Over the years, I've updated it here: https://blog.jdpfu.com/2011/06/24/sy...-for-linux-pcs

    The best maintenance happens automatically, so we don't need to think about it at all, provided it does no harm and actually does what is needed, when needed.
    Last edited by TheFu; August 22nd, 2020 at 08:29 PM.

  5. #5
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    Re: Ubuntu Cleaner

    Very nice!

  6. #6
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    Re: Ubuntu Cleaner

    Other than deleting unneeded kernels an running autoremove I don't use cleaner programs. They are common is Windows but not much needed in Linux unless /root space is getting whelmed. Plus, cleaners can take you to the cleaner. In the same vein, as the Ubuntu OS gets larger and the hard drives get larger it wouldn't hurt to reevaluate your space needs and increase the size of your /root partition. If you run out of /root you will crash. Seems to me.

  7. #7
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    Re: Ubuntu Cleaner

    Got the chance to test out Ubuntu Cleaner with removing old kernels today. It did the job, left a few residual configs but seems like a good solution for new users.

  8. #8
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    Re: Ubuntu Cleaner

    Quote Originally Posted by exploder View Post
    Got the chance to test out Ubuntu Cleaner with removing old kernels today. It did the job, left a few residual configs but seems like a good solution for new users.
    Code:
    sudo apt autoremove
    sudo apt autoclean
    Since 16.04, nothing else should really be necessary.

    I would NOT suggest people blindly increase the size of /, unless it is less than 30G. If it is over 30G, something else is wrong and steps should be taken to correct those other issues.
    Code:
    Filesystem                      Type  Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
    /dev/mapper/vgubuntu--mate-root ext4   17G  8.5G  7.4G  54% /
    That's a 20.04 desktop. The trick is that /home is mounted to different storage.
    Code:
    Filesystem                      Type  Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
    /dev/mapper/vgubuntu--mate-home ext4   12G  6.0G  5.3G  54% /home
    /boot is part of / on this system - it uses legacy boot, not UEFI. On systems with a separate /boot/, then I'd run sudo apt autoremove every 2 weeks.
    Last edited by TheFu; August 31st, 2020 at 09:51 PM.

  9. #9
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    Re: Ubuntu Cleaner

    @ TheFu

    Thank you for the clarification about the commands. There is a lot of old information out there. You've got me thinking that maybe it would be a better idea to explain this to new users and save the information in a text document until they get used to the commands. You drove home the point that there really isn't that much to keeping things cleaned up. The user that had the issue was using legacy boot.

  10. #10
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    Re: Ubuntu Cleaner

    I use Ubuntu Cleaner and I have used it for a long time. It works reliable for the LTS releases, it did not work for for 19.10. Basically I run it after each update and I can assure you, that it removes stuff every time I use it!!! How much depends on the flavour of Ubuntu. For some flavours it removes hundreds of megabytes. You can use apt autoremove, autoclean and clean, but I prefer the GUI.

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