Root partition full, why?

Not sure if this is the proper forum, however, I’ll give it a try anyway. I had been copying “vmkd” files all of which are very large (11gig) each and later deleted them and it appears some I had deleted using “root” I reached a point when it couldn’t do it and it said it couldn’t because trash bin was full. Sure enough I found my root partition (20gigs) was full. I went root and emptied its trash bin which freed up about (4gigs) of space. I just set up a new system (11.2) on another drive and have setup it up with exactly the same programs as the system I’m having a problem with and the new systems root partition only has (6gigs) in the root partition. Question; how do I clean out my problem root partition?

6GB for root partition?
Which DE you are using?

I think root should not be less than 10GB. At least…

I am not sure, what can be cleaned from root partition except tmp files. But again 6gig is not enough.

Correct me if i am getting it wrong.

Check the /tmp directory and see if it is filling your drive. Delete what you don’t need and see if that helps. If that’s not the problem, then check with du and df to see where the problem might be.

It could be an errant program is writing large log files. Also try a reboot and watch to see if the disk starts filling again. You eventually will find the cause, then take steps to rectify it.

Enable ‘delete’ in the context menu of the settings for your file browser and avoid using trash, I never use trashcan and never had a mistake yet.

First I don’t think the root should have more than 10GB - I found my problem, it was in “tmp” K9copy had a folder in there which contained two folders containing a movie file that I had ripped, why I don’t know? Anyway I deleted them and my root is now at 8GB and I’m sure I can reduce it even more. Thanks for your input

I always set K3b (I guess k9copy has the same settings) to use my home folder for it’s temp stuff, mainly because it has always more free space, but it’s also easier to keep an eye on temp files as well.

About the same, not in home, on a separate disk and partition.