Does apt-get update clog up hard drive?

[jMon54]

I was getting out of disk space messages, but I had had tons of space before I installed Knoppix just a few weeks ago. It's a 40g drive which while just running Windows was only using about a fourth of available space. I checked with qtparted and it does appear I am way low on unused space. Makes me wonder if doing "apt-get updates" adds a lot of files to my hard drive. Strangely, even my Windows NTFS partition showed it was low on unused space. Has anyone experienced this sort of problem?

[Markus]

Apt-get saves all downloaded packages in /var/cache/apt/archives which you can clean up with sudo apt-get clean but it certainly shouldn't eat up disk space to that extent.
du -a|sort -n|tail tells you the largest directories/files from the working directory down.
dpkg-query -W --showformat='${Installed-Size} ${Package}\n' | sort -n tells you the largest packages installed.
apt-get install filelight is a nice GUI for browsing disk usage by directories/packages

BTW, it isn't apt-get update that eats disk space, but rather apt-get upgrade.

[jMon54]

BTW, it isn't apt-get update that eats disk space, but rather apt-get upgrade.

Thanks for the info - and am I right in understanding apt-get upgrade is something I really do NOT want to do?

[Markus]

BTW, it isn't apt-get update that eats disk space, but rather apt-get upgrade.

Thanks for the info - and am I right in understanding apt-get upgrade is something I really do NOT want to do?

I've done it with knoppix but be prepared to force and fix some packages. So I suppose it's something you shouldn't do if you don't want to bork something up. Everything can be fixed of course, but another question is, is it worth it. If you want an easier to upgrade install, try kanotix.

[Harry Kuhman]

If you want an easier to upgrade install, try kanotix.

How does one do a hard drive install in Kanotix?

[Markus]

How does one do a hard drive install in Kanotix?

Try the kanotix forum. A couple of stickies in the install section:
http://kanotix.mipooh.net/viewtopic.php?t=31
http://kanotix.mipooh.net/viewtopic.php?t=180

Basically the same as knoppix just the name of the script differs: sudo kanotix-installer
or you can check for an update on it with: kanotix-installer-latest-web

[rrfish72]

knoppix-installer also works. For me I had to do it from a knosole and not do the ctrl alt f1 part. When I do it from there (ctrl alt f1) it go to the password part then gives errors and will not continue, so I tried a konsole and it went through fine.

[CrashedAgain]

knoppix-installer also works. For me I had to do it from a knosole and not do the ctrl alt f1 part. When I do it from there (ctrl alt f1) it go to the password part then gives errors and will not continue, so I tried a konsole and it went through fine.

Supposedly this bug has been fixed.

for jMon54: the command 'df' (disk free) will reveal how much disk space is used. Any time you apt-get install a package it keeps the package archive in var/cache/apt/archives until you use apt-get clean to clear them out.

[Markus]

the command 'df' (disk free) will reveal how much disk space is used..

And if you want the output in Megs and Gigs: df -h for humanly readable.