/tmp & /var/tmp in ubuntu

[Tom H]

On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 1:13 PM, Rajeev Prasad <rp.neuli at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> comparing to solaris in which /tmp actually affects system RAM. so you
> should not keep anything big in /tmp.
>
> is it the same in ubuntu?
>
> can i keep my tmp data in /var/tmp? or is it primarily meant for apps only
> to use?

In Solaris, the filesystem of "/tmp" is tmpfs so it's more likely to
be smaller than having "/tmp" as a directory on "/" or a separate
partition.

You can set up "/tmp" to use tmpfs on Ubuntu but this isn't done by
default, as on Solaris.

The only difference between "/tmp" and "/var/tmp" is that files in
"/var/tmp" are deleted less frequently by the system without any size
criterion/criteria.