[newbie] better way to delete unneeded but accumulating backup files, subdirectories?

[David Armour]

>
> From:
> Brian Fahrlander <brian at fahrlander.net>
> Date:
> Wed, 07 Feb 2007 02:59:23 -0600
>
>> I have some sort of backup sequence that accumulates partial and full 
>> backup files in /var/backup; I initiated the sequence before appreciated 
>> what I was setting up, and far enough back that I have zero recollection 
>> of what I might have used. A couple of months back, after I noticed my 
>> remaining hard drive space disappearing at a rapid rate, (quelle 
>> suprise!) someone here kindly suggested deleting them, and I've been 
>> deleting them more or less bi-weekly ever since using the following 
>>     
>     Check your crontabs, and entries in /etc/cron.*. There's likely a
> script, installed with the backup, that eats your space.
>
>     Crontabs come in two varieties: user-related and system-related.
> User crontabs are most easily checked like:
>
>     crontab -e root
>
>     The system-related ones live in /etc/cron.daily, /etc/cron.hourly,
> and so on.
>
>     Look first: somethings NEED to be there.  Don't just go dumping
> anything you see, that'll cause problems.
>
>     (All this is not specific to any release, I don't believe.)
Thanks v. much for your reply. It help me a lot! I'll give the crontabs 
a once over later today.

BTW, I got an unfamiliar error message from Gmane when I tried replying 
earlier today via that route. Anyone else?