Root partition full...how should I free up space?

[David Curtis]

On Tue, 26 May 2009 18:03:21 -0700
Robert Swanson <mapa-kettle at shaw.ca> wrote:

> On Tuesday 26 May 2009 08:59, Brian McKee wrote:
> > On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 2:35 AM, Faizan Kazi <faizan.s.kazi at gmail.com> 
> wrote:
> > > I'm using Ubuntu 9.04 and Ive completely run out of space on my root
> > > partition. Ive tried uninstalled programs, cleaning the apt cache and
> > > autoremoving stuff, but i only freed 500 M and its giving my system
> > > problems... Vuze keeps reporting the harddisk is full... programs seem to
> > > be running slow...
> > > How do i free up space? Shall I expand the partition? (using ext 4). And
> > > where's all my free space gone...??
> > >
> 
> One possible source of the problem of a full / partition can be a large update 
> that has failed, particularly if you have tried to do the update more than 
> once.  This just happened to me 3 weeks ago, and it was necessary for me to 
> find where the files were copied and delete them.  
> 	When this was done, my / partition went from 98% back down to 38%.  I can't 
> specifically remember in which directory the files were located, and that is 
> my bad because I knew I wanted to remember what I did for the next time.
> 	I am using KDE, and I think I solved the problem by using the Adept updater.  
> ( I'll write it down the next time I can assure you! )

/var/cache/apt/archives/partial/

'sudo apt-get clean' removes everything in archives and in archives/partial.