Do you notice that you are running out of disc space too quickly? After installing a lot of software on Ubuntu, more disc space is used than you think. When you tell your package manager to download and install a package, it has to the downloaded files somewhere! It would be nice to have the packages stored in the RAM but that's not how Ubuntu works. Because of this, to keep your computer running fast, you have to clear the package cache sometimes. This can be done two ways.
Removing Old Dependencies
If you uninstall software from your computer, its dependencies might remain on your system. To uninstall the dependencies, type
Removing Package Archives
If you only want to remove the .deb pre-packaged binaries from older versions of software installed on your computer type
Removing Entire Package Cache
If you want to remove the entire package cache from your system, you will need to install some extra software called Ubuntu Tweak. I will do a full review of Ubuntu Tweak later but for now, let's just get the job we are trying to do done. Once you install Ubuntu Tweak from here, open it and type in an administrator's password if asked to. Click on the second tab under Applications, click the Unlock button, and type in an administrator's password if asked to. Click on the Clean Packages button and check the Select All box. This will not remove the actual programs. It will remove the installers downloaded by your package manager. To remove the installers listed, click on the Clean Up button and wait for Ubuntu Tweak to do its thing. Do this for all of the buttons on the side of the window but do not purge PPAs. The Clean Kernels button will remove the installers for all of your old kernels. If you have never upgraded the kernel, there will be nothing to clean there.
I hope this guide has helped you free up quite a bit of room on your system. Check back soon for a complete Ubuntu Tweak review!
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