Need terminal command for safely deleting log files and other useless garbage in /
 

Subject says it all.

rm ?
however, only delete the files, created by logrotate not the logfiles.
you could write a script to do it for you.
what other garbage do you want to delete ?

The trick here is how you define "useless garbage". Also, you don't normally find files in "/". For example, log files are in /var.

"safely deleting" to me means --in part-- that you know that it is safe to delete something. There is no command to give you that info. If you don't know what the file is, then don't delete it.

The command you are looking for is "rm". Enter "man rm" to get all the options, syntax, etc.

The partition of 11.6g on which / is mounted has completely filed up. I did a search on *.log and came up with an incredible number which had accumulated. I want to delete as many files which are safe to delete as I can from the partition in which / is mounted without having to do it one file at a time using konqueror. Being a newbie I do NOT know which files are safe to delete, and that is what my post is asking--how do I go about recapturing space in the / partition without having to delete files one at a time using knowledge I do not possess.

Hi There,

deleting files here means removing files. 'rm' command will remove the files which can recovered with another cumbersome process. If you want to completely remove the files, then use 'rm -rf' command. But make sure that this way, you will not be able to recover your deleted files...

Cheers,
Kapil.

Sorry about subject being unclear. It is not a question of what command to use, which I knew even though a newbie, but which files to delete that are not necessary to keep.

In /var/log, I think you can delete just about everything.

But first, what are the really big files? (On my system, after running for many months, everything in /var/log adds up to only 51MB)

In /var/log, I think you can delete just about everything.

But first, what are the really big files? (On my system, after running for many months, everything in /var/log adds up to only 51MB)

How is your filestystem divided up?
 

Is everything in / or do you have separate /var /home/ /etc directories?

One question is: how is this computer used? Depending on use, different folders may fill up at different rates, for example /var/www on a webserver etc...