Comments on: Where Does All That Disk Space Go? http://www.conifersystems.com/2008/09/30/where-does-all-that-disk-space-go/ Sun, 05 Feb 2012 10:21:04 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.5 By: Matt http://www.conifersystems.com/2008/09/30/where-does-all-that-disk-space-go/#comment-7 Matt Fri, 03 Oct 2008 18:01:02 +0000 http://www.conifersystems.com/?p=57#comment-7 Windows Installer does reference counting of components, also, so when you uninstall a program that relies on shared components, they are automatically removed when the last reference goes away. Of course, this only works if everyone uses .msi/Windows Installer installers -- which they probably should, but often don't. There are still lots of people using non-.msi installers such as Inno Setup. But either way, that only indirectly addresses the issue. On my Ubuntu system, I have lots of packages installed that I rarely or never use. Maybe I installed a package because I needed to use it exactly once, and now it's just sitting there. Not a big deal given that I have a 500GB hard drive in that computer, but if I was trying to squeeze into a 32GB or 64GB SSD... Windows Installer does reference counting of components, also, so when you uninstall a program that relies on shared components, they are automatically removed when the last reference goes away. Of course, this only works if everyone uses .msi/Windows Installer installers — which they probably should, but often don’t. There are still lots of people using non-.msi installers such as Inno Setup.

But either way, that only indirectly addresses the issue. On my Ubuntu system, I have lots of packages installed that I rarely or never use. Maybe I installed a package because I needed to use it exactly once, and now it’s just sitting there. Not a big deal given that I have a 500GB hard drive in that computer, but if I was trying to squeeze into a 32GB or 64GB SSD…

]]> By: Nigel Stewart http://www.conifersystems.com/2008/09/30/where-does-all-that-disk-space-go/#comment-6 Nigel Stewart Wed, 01 Oct 2008 05:53:38 +0000 http://www.conifersystems.com/?p=57#comment-6 Solved on Ubuntu/Debian systems: $ sudo apt-get autoremove "remove packages that were automatically installed to satisfy dependencies for some package and that are no more needed." Solved on Ubuntu/Debian systems:

$ sudo apt-get autoremove

“remove packages that were automatically installed to satisfy dependencies for some package and that are no more needed.”

]]>