2

I'm using a chromebook, which doesn't have a whole lot of memory (for reference, it is a Acer Chromebook 11) and I've used Crouton to download Linux, in the form of Ubuntu 12.04, to start learning how to use Bash and Ubuntu. I have also downloaded other packages, like git, a special version of vim found on github, various python packages, and such.

I'd like to know how to get information like how much memory is being used on my computer and what packages are taking up the most space. I've looked around a bit on this site and couldn't find any answers. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

auden
  • 193

2 Answers2

1

By "memory" do you mean disk space or RAM?

To find out how much RAM is used right now (-m for MiB):

free -m

To find out how much disk space is used on your computer (-m for MiB):

df -m | grep '^\(Filesystem\|/dev/\S\+\)'

To list the 20 packages taking the most disk space (size given in KiB):

dpkg-query -Wf '${Installed-Size}\t${Package}\n' | sort -rn | head -20

To show programs in RAM:

top
AlexP
  • 10,435
1

Task Manager that can give you a visual representation of resource use: htop

  • $ sudo apt-get update
  • $ sudo apt-get install htop
  • $ htop

Disk usage:

$ df -h

Where is all my disk space going?

$ du -h -d 1 (from root dir or /)

Clear out downloaded packages that are no longer needed:

$ sudo apt-get clean

Clear out packages that no longer have download candidates:

$ sudo apt-get autoclean

Remove unused packages:

$ sudo apt-get autoremove

Check for large Log files:

$ sudo du -h /var/log

There are other applications to help as well. A lot of people like one called Bleachbit. I'm pretty certain it's in the Ubuntu repos.

AnotherKiwiGuy
  • 4,482
  • 1
  • 22
  • 39