Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

I installed Easy on a USB stick a while ago, initially just to play around and try things out. Since then I've updated it whenever updates have become available. However, it appears there is insufficient space left on the USB for any further updates.

I looked into this a bit further, and it transpires Easy is now occupying 12Gb of space. I assume this is due to all the previous updates I've installed? So what can I delete, and whatever it is where do I find it?

Thanks

I suggest that you run Gdmap (in the Filesystem menu) on the working-partition, get a picture where all the space is getting taken up.

Easy defaults to only keeping previous version 5-deep, so older ones should have got deleted.

Have you installed flatpaks? They can take up a lot of space.

@stevie pup

1. go to sdb2/easyos and you can delete easy-5.5.5 amd64.img
2. move files from sdb2/easyos/files, esp. files/downloads to your hardisk or to external backup media.

best regards.

Another thought, click on "setup" icon, then "EasyOS -> Version Control"

You see the depth of "5". Change to something smaller, say 2, click "Cancel" button to get out.
Despite Cancel, it will remember the new depth.

Reboot, and there should be some messages during bootup that deleting old versions.

BarryK wrote: Tue Nov 07, 2023 1:16 am

I suggest that you run Gdmap (in the Filesystem menu) on the working-partition, get a picture where all the space is getting taken up.
Have you installed flatpaks? They can take up a lot of space.

Ran Gdmap but couldn't make sense of it I'm afraid. Think I need some more education with that. No flatpaks, nor any other additional software, that was going to be my next task.

bugnaw333 wrote: Tue Nov 07, 2023 10:40 am

1. go to sdb2/easyos and you can delete easy-5.5.5 amd64.img
2. move files from sdb2/easyos/files, esp. files/downloads to your hardisk or to external backup media.

1. Deleted the 5.5.5 img, all that's done is reduce the space used to just over 11Gb.
2. There isn't anything to move. All that is on this USB stick is the EasyOS. No additional software, no music, documents, or anything else, just what it comes with. This is what makes me think something's somehow gone haywire.

One final question. During the boot process there is something about the read speed of the medium. I know it says "lower the better" but what is an optimum figure? Reason I ask is that I've got some doubts about the state of the actual USB stick.

Thank you to you both for your replies.

@stevie pup

This is the drive space occupied by sdb EasyOS 5.5.5 "fresh install" on my cheap 8G USB stick with a working drive speed of 173.
The fastest I have got with my old USB sticks is at 143 but it does not matter for me...
Maybe you need to try another stick.

Out of curiosity I trid to set the "depth" parameter to 1, but upon reboot I saw nothing indicating any snapshot was removed, and in version control I still see all versions back to 5.3.2 (by the way the window gets super wide with soo many snapshots, way wider than the screen). 5.3.2 was, I believe, my first install. It seems that the "cleanup" process may not work, and in version control it seems there are no options to manually remove snapshots.

butiliero wrote: Wed Nov 08, 2023 8:25 am

Out of curiosity I trid to set the "depth" parameter to 1, but upon reboot I saw nothing indicating any snapshot was removed, and in version control I still see all versions back to 5.3.2 (by the way the window gets super wide with soo many snapshots, way wider than the screen). 5.3.2 was, I believe, my first install. It seems that the "cleanup" process may not work, and in version control it seems there are no options to manually remove snapshots.

You are not the first person to report this.

For me, running Easy on my main workhorse, a Lenovo desktop PC, there is a depth of 5 and older versions do get deleted.
So I don't know why it is not happening for others. I will have to study the code in the initrd again.

Anyway, it should be ok if you do it manually. In the Rox file manager, go to /mnt/wkg/releases and delete all the old versions (right-click on a folder and choose to delete it). That should free up heaps of space. Maybe just leave the previous version.

EDIT:
See further down, what stevie pup did, that fixes it.

Got to the bottom of it I think, mostly by accident rather than design, so I've marked the thread as solved. I had tried everything that had been suggested, all to no avail, so I was just playing around trying to find out exactly what was taking up so much space. As I was going through things I was making notes as I went along, so there may well be a shorter more direct route than this, but here goes: mnt/sdb2/EasyOS/sfs/EasyOS/oe/Kirkstone.

In there I found an endless ream of old sfs's, along with the spec sheets, going right back to version 4.2 (I think). So deleted most of the old ones (left a couple behind to be on the safe side). Rebooted to make sure I hadn't over done things and wrecked it, and all was ok. Space used is now down to less than 3Gb, a massive improvement on the previous 12GB.

I'm guessing this isn't supposed to happen, unless I'm barking up the wrong tree completely? But deleting all those old sfs's is the only thing I've done that's freed up the space.

stevie pup wrote: Wed Nov 08, 2023 1:29 pm

Got to the bottom of it I think, mostly by accident rather than design, so I've marked the thread as solved. I had tried everything that had been suggested, all to no avail, so I was just playing around trying to find out exactly what was taking up so much space. As I was going through things I was making notes as I went along, so there may well be a shorter more direct route than this, but here goes: mnt/sdb2/EasyOS/sfs/EasyOS/oe/Kirkstone.

In there I found an endless ream of old sfs's, along with the spec sheets, going right back to version 4.2 (I think). So deleted most of the old ones (left a couple behind to be on the safe side). Rebooted to make sure I hadn't over done things and wrecked it, and all was ok. Space used is now down to less than 3Gb, a massive improvement on the previous 12GB.

I'm guessing this isn't supposed to happen, unless I'm barking up the wrong tree completely? But deleting all those old sfs's is the only thing I've done that's freed up the space.

I really have to study the update code in the initrd. It is supposed to delete old sfs files older than the depth value (5).
I presume in your case there were lots of old easy_*.sfs files? If they got left behind, they are big and can chew up lots of drive space.

So yeah, what you did is ok. Deleting old sfs files that it is obvious aren't needed anymore, is fine.

Delete old /mnt/wkg/releases/release-* folders that are no longer required is also a good idea, as they may have symlinks to the old sfss that got deleted.

BarryK wrote: Wed Nov 08, 2023 11:51 pm

I really have to study the update code in the initrd. It is supposed to delete old sfs files older than the depth value (5).
I presume in your case there were lots of old easy_*.sfs files? If they got left behind, they are big and can chew up lots of drive space.

So yeah, what you did is ok. Deleting old sfs files that it is obvious aren't needed anymore, is fine.

Delete old /mnt/wkg/releases/release-* folders that are no longer required is also a good idea, as they may have symlinks to the old sfss that got deleted.

Yes Barry, there were lots of old .sfs files. As far as I can remember they went all the way back to 4.2, so probably when I first installed Easy. So in other words it hadn't automatically deleted any. The files in /mnt/wkg/releases I had already deleted a couple of days ago.

Thanks for your reply, and sorry for leaving you with something else to scratch your head over.