Files to delete safetly

English Applications
#1

These days ive been updating from 11.3 to 11.4 and then to 12.1.

Today ive found executing yast2 that /home was almost full. Thats stranges me because i havent downloaded anything big for a while.

Using find in all the files of my /home directory i found many heavy files, that i want to delete but dont know if i would break anything of my system:

1 - meta.db-wal in /.cache/tracker…dont remember to have it before.

2 - some *.cfs files of style: _2hs3.cfs or _511c.cfs… they are located in /eduardo/.strigi/clucene and some *.fdt in the same directory.

3 - Some tracker-store.journal.number.gz… sytle: tracker-store.journal.7.gz, trac,ker-store.journal.9.gz, tracker-store.journal.5.gz… i have about 10 of these files.

4 - places.sqlite and urlclassifier3.sqlite in /.mozilla/firefox/rq0b4ws6.default

I need to make room in my home directory an i want to know if can delete this files safetly or in the other hand i cant delete them because are system files or config important files.

Thanks in advance

#2

First,
IMO you might want to also doublecheck free space on your root partition. Lack of sufficient free space will cause problems at least two ways… space for temp files created when files are updated or moved, and space for new apps and libraries.

Recommend:

  • Install tmpwatch and clear out unnecessary files in /tmp and /var/tmp. Note that some of those very large files could be downloaded files for installation, so do your cleaning <between> upgrades, not during an upgrade except in an emergency.
  • Move unnecessary files in your /home partition to an external disk or network share, usually most of the contents of Downloads, Documents, Pictures and any other similar “data” directories can be temporarily moved without worry.
  • During your upgrades, <do> inspect what software is installed. I was surprised and submitted a bug report that I think somehow old software long removed was sometimes “discovered” and re-installed during an upgrade.

BTW - If you have an nVidia GPU, see my post about upgrading with an nVidia driver in the “How To/FAQ” forums.
http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/how-faq-forums/unreviewed-how-faq/472361-upgrading-nvidia-driver-includes-useful-info-new-installs.html

HTH,
TS

#3

Tracker is a search tool and you can remove those files and disable it if you don’t use the utility. However, if you’re jumping two releases and disk space is at a premium, I’d suggest using a partitioner to expand the /home partition and doing a clean install, reformatting the partitions. If you should do so, be sure to back up all of your important files.

#4

On 2012-02-18 22:36, tsu2 wrote:
> - During your upgrades, <do> inspect what software is installed. I was
> surprised and submitted a bug report that I think somehow old software
> long removed was sometimes “discovered” and re-installed during an
> upgrade.

That’s a feature! >:-)

The upgrade can be based on patterns, or only replace existing packages.
The default is the former. If a pattern is incomplete, whatever is missing
is reinstalled.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

#5

On 2012-02-18 22:26, ejgutierrez wrote:

> Using find in all the files of my /home directory i found many heavy
> files, that i want to delete but dont know if i would break anything of
> my system:
>
> 1 - meta.db-wal in /.cache/tracker…dont remember to have it
> before.

Tracker is a content indexer. It finds all your personal files and looks
inside, so that later you can find a phrase, for example. It is
configurable somewhere. It is possible that with the upgrade it got
confused, so you can delete all the index files, which will be recreated
again, hopefully more compact unless there is a bug.

<hhtp://projects.gnome.org/tracker/>

> 2 - some *.cfs files of style: _2hs3.cfs or _511c.cfs… they are
> located in /eduardo/.strigi/clucene and some *.fdt in the same
> directory.

Strigi is the same, for kde.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strigi>

> 4 - places.sqlite and urlclassifier3.sqlite in
> /.mozilla/firefox/rq0b4ws6.default

That’s probably your firefox database of sites. Maybe on their site they
list what files you can remove.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

#6

Thanks i only need to make some room at /home.

/boot is at 70% ( i have two desktop kernels).
/home at 95%
/ at 80%

I try to make some room.

#7

“places.sqlite” contains your bookmarks and browsing history.

It is normally safe to remove, as long as your browser is not running at the time. There’s usually a backup of your bookmarks in the “bookmarkbackups” subdirectory, and the bookmarks are automatically recovered from there if you delete “places.sqlite”.

The file will be recreated, but might take a while to grow back to its earlier size.

The file “urlclassifier3.sqlite” is used to detect malicious links. You can delete it, but it will reappear at the same size when you next run firefox. If you don’t want it, then you have to disable that in preferences, and after that you can delete the file.