Cleaning Linux?

Discussion in 'all things UNIX' started by dogbite, Aug 28, 2013.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. dogbite

    dogbite Registered Member

    Joined:
    Dec 13, 2012
    Posts:
    1,290
    Location:
    EU
    We all know that Windows generates a lot of junk when running, which many of us clean with Ccleaner, Privazer, etc.
    What about Linux? I read somewhere that Linux does not need any cleaning at all, but I am not pretty sure.
    Can someone of you experienced guy confirm?
     
  2. UnknownK

    UnknownK Registered Member

    Joined:
    Nov 3, 2012
    Posts:
    160
    Location:
    Unknown

    Even in linux, you may want to clear the various caches: caches of package management tools like apt,yum; browser caches et al.

    For that you can use Bleachbit; It does its job pretty well.
     
  3. Lucy

    Lucy Registered Member

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2006
    Posts:
    404
    Location:
    France
  4. UnknownK

    UnknownK Registered Member

    Joined:
    Nov 3, 2012
    Posts:
    160
    Location:
    Unknown
    It isn't essential, but it can certainly freeup some space in your system. Obviously, you need to have knowledge about what you're doing.

    Look at the screenshot below:

    http://www.zimagez.com/zimage/screenshot-wednesday28august2013-032927ist.php

    Prior to the cleaning, I installed two softwares: Smplayer and debian-keyring, which inturn brought other dependencies. Now, I don't need all these .debs which are installed in my system; I can safely remove all these apt caches. You can see it freed about 60 MB of space.
     
  5. NGRhodes

    NGRhodes Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 23, 2003
    Posts:
    2,381
    Location:
    West Yorkshire, UK
    I've never found a need to run cleaners on Windows or Linux routinely, only to resolve specific issues, badly behaving app or disk space (UnkownK gives a good example above).

    Most common Linux distros manage installed software (install and un-install) cleanly, without leaving junk behind that can cause future issues like can happen in Windows.

    Cheers, Nick
     
  6. Lucy

    Lucy Registered Member

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2006
    Posts:
    404
    Location:
    France
    @UnknownK and NGRhodes,

    You may very well be right! There is, of course, room for these tools in case of serious problems.

    I myself use a pretty straight-forward OS install, so I don't really need it.

    For the ones coming from Windows, I remind the window install is something like 20+Go (after tweaking and downloading all necessary programs - google earth, VLC, fill in the list...). A typical linux install with tweaks and downloads is just something like 4Go (right? I didn't check for precise figures). So by installing Linux, you instantly save 16Go of data.
    On top of it, these are "dead" data and impact only the storage capacity (come on, 60MB in the world of the tera-byte is not even significant).

    I understood the OP, as somebody discovering Linux (and coming from Windows). I just wanted to point out there are more important matters to study before taking care of "cleaning" a Linux system.
     
  7. dogbite

    dogbite Registered Member

    Joined:
    Dec 13, 2012
    Posts:
    1,290
    Location:
    EU
    Thanks guys, I think I am not gonna run any cleaner..
     
  8. UnknownK

    UnknownK Registered Member

    Joined:
    Nov 3, 2012
    Posts:
    160
    Location:
    Unknown
    That is right.
     
  9. mack_guy911

    mack_guy911 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Mar 21, 2007
    Posts:
    2,677
    i use bleach-bit to clean only chrome, flash, firefox, trash, and recent files only without any problem :)

    for save side this i recommend to you


    i dont mess temp files or any other files and use only in usermode never in root

    at most you more can go with Thumbnails cache

    also i dont use it regularly only sometimes
     
  10. AlexC

    AlexC Registered Member

    Joined:
    Apr 4, 2009
    Posts:
    1,288
    I only clean the browser and very rarely use apt-get autoremove and apt-get autoclean.
     
  11. lotuseclat79

    lotuseclat79 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 16, 2005
    Posts:
    5,390
    One day some years ago, I remember being curious about what resided in /tmp from my user's account on my workstation, and low and behold I was able to peek at some emails from one of our VPs. I reported the experience to our sysadmin as a concern about user permissions (perhaps of shared volumes for our internal network), and left it for the sysadmins to solve.

    What's in your /tmp?

    -- Tom
     
  12. TheCatMan

    TheCatMan Registered Member

    Joined:
    Aug 16, 2013
    Posts:
    327
    Location:
    sweden
    Does Linux store as much windows logs, ie like lastactivity and muicache ?

    One would assume something like whonix or a linux built for privacy would avoid any logging ?
     
  13. Gullible Jones

    Gullible Jones Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 16, 2013
    Posts:
    1,466
    Linux stores lasting configuration and cache data in "dotfiles" in your home directory - just files or directories whose names start with a period. Deleting said dotfiles is easy... The bigger question is whether you should actually do that, and the answer is usually "no." Modern SATA drives are huge and cheap, and few programs have major compatibility issues between versions. So even if you uninstall a program, it's usually worth keeping the configurations around in case of future use.

    If you're worried about data fragmentation, you could try using separate partitions for frequently updated directories, e.g. /home and /var; this would prevent system data from getting (physically) interspersed with user files, logs, etc., so it might help prevent performance degradation. In any case, using separate partitions for user writable areas is generally considered A Good Idea.

    Finally, it's worth noting that I have only very rarely seen performance degradation over time on Linux; and that only with the ReiserFS filesystem, which is now considered largely obsolete. Modern Linux filesystems do not seem to suffer gradual performance loss during normal desktop use.
     
  14. Snoop3

    Snoop3 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jan 2, 2011
    Posts:
    474
    i'm only at 4.7 GB on WinXP here after disabling hiberfile.sys and pagefil.sys (will move pagefile.sys to another partition) - thats with all the updates + .NET 4. before all the updates and .NET it was around 2.5 gb iirc.

    i try not to install much though, just run portable stuff inc VLC, Notepad++, Sumatra, etc etc from a separate partition.
     
  15. J_L

    J_L Registered Member

    Joined:
    Nov 6, 2009
    Posts:
    8,738
    I only use BleachBit and Ubuntu Tweak's Janitor to create smaller disk images.
     
  16. TheCatMan

    TheCatMan Registered Member

    Joined:
    Aug 16, 2013
    Posts:
    327
    Location:
    sweden
    thanks good to hear.
     
  17. TheCatMan

    TheCatMan Registered Member

    Joined:
    Aug 16, 2013
    Posts:
    327
    Location:
    sweden
    seems bleachbit is popular, I was wondering how come no one has created a linux distro that works around privacy and being anonymous, and leaves no logs or traces, am aware of whonix but not sure about overall usability if it can run movies or mp3s etc and if it produces logs internally...

    may have to do some further checking...
     
  18. A couple of years ago I've used BleachBit and Janitor to cleaned Ubuntu and somehow I broke it. I think I've got careless. :blink:
     
  19. NGRhodes

    NGRhodes Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 23, 2003
    Posts:
    2,381
    Location:
    West Yorkshire, UK
    Just use a liveCD ?
     
  20. TheCatMan

    TheCatMan Registered Member

    Joined:
    Aug 16, 2013
    Posts:
    327
    Location:
    sweden
    Yeah I had have tried a similar project, ubuntu live cd Toram >Virtualbox>whonix and other linux running.

    Its possible and doable with 16gig of ram, but of course once unplugged you gotta start from scratch or reload snaps etc.

    Seems to be the only way to really delete logs, traces of any activity!

    I was however seeing if there were other linux distros that worked to offer better privacy.... still it appears linux does not log nearly remotely as much as windows ever would.
     
  21. WSFuser

    WSFuser Registered Member

    Joined:
    Oct 7, 2004
    Posts:
    10,639
    Liberté Linux and Tails
     
  22. TheCatMan

    TheCatMan Registered Member

    Joined:
    Aug 16, 2013
    Posts:
    327
    Location:
    sweden
    Thanks yeah am gonna try out liberte, and tails I would still love to find out if these linux based live cds could be run via virtualbox I know liberte can, and if they still did not log as much information as windows for example...

    Am still unsure if whonix stores much information via logs... may ask that question next!

    I think otherwise running ubuntu>virtualbox and tails/whonix/liberte or just one of them maybe easier !
     
  23. adrelanos

    adrelanos Registered Member

    Joined:
    Sep 28, 2012
    Posts:
    85
    Assuming things in tech are always bad. Verify it or assume the worst case.

    Other than Tails, Whonix is not amnesic. And never made such claims. Best we got is a recommendation to use full disk encryption (FDE). I acknowledge, that FDE is not as good as not storing data on hdd in the first place like Tails. In an ideal world, there would be a mixture of Whonix and Tails. Such an jack of all trades device doesn't exist in reality.

    I am wondering about many things as well, such as that there aren't even a dozen people contributing code to Whonix.

    Running movies, mp3's, flash etc. works. Logs: answered above.

    We recently had such a similar discussion in Whonix's forum:
    https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Special:AWCforum/st/id85/Possible_to_install_whonix_off_U....html
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.