Hello.
I selected in the add/remove software application Two packages: Arduino and updating Libreoffice. It was supposed to bemore or less 430 MB of downlaod but it was 4 GB. It started updating after the download and never stopped updating. When more than 20GB in the SDD was consupmted i stopped it and rebooted the computer. How can i free all that space in the drive? How can i know what was installed?
Regards.
Read what program is telling you.
Anyhow, remove ceph-libs and/or python2. My wild guess, it’s that.
2 Likes
You can read pacman’s logs here:
/var/log/pacman.log
What is DOWNLOADED is not what is INSTALLED.
The DOWNLOAD is a compressed application.
What is INSTALLED is the uncompressed application.
What is happening, (SIMPLIFIED)
Application downloads, pacman removes all traces and no longer needed or outdated dependencies installed by the old version, it then installs the updated application and new dependencies.
It leave behind the user defined configuration file so it don’t need to be changed again. Yes, if settings do need to be changed, they can be.
DO NOT simply delete Python2. As some applications may still rely on it. They shouldn’t but to be sure,
run dependency-checker python2 first. If you are returned to a command prompt, then it’s safe to remove.
dependency-checker does not work that way. It checks dependencies in the repos, not in the local system. So if there are no dependencies in the repos, it’s going to give an empty list, even if some local package may need it. Besides, some things that require python 2 are not even packages. For example gimp plugins.
You can check the dependency-checker thing running dependency-checker python3. It gives this output:
extra/vulkan-html-docs make depends on python3 (built by Laurent Carlier <lordheavym@archlinux.org>)
community/gnome-flashback make depends on python3 (built by Jan Alexander Steffens (heftig) <heftig@archlinux.org>)
community/kitty depends on python3 (built by Sven-Hendrik Haase <svenstaro@gmail.com>)
community/kitty-shell-integration depends on python3 (built by Sven-Hendrik Haase <svenstaro@gmail.com>)
community/patchutils depends on python3 (built by Felix Yan <felixonmars@archlinux.org>)
community/scribus depends on python3 (built by Felix Yan <felixonmars@archlinux.org>)
But of those packages, only patchutils is installed on my system.
A wild guess: did you try to install some packages while your system wasn’t up-to-date?
The package is actually python. Try dependency-checker python. 
I was making a point about dependency-checker (about what it is for), not trying to solve anything
What is DOWNLOADED is not what is INSTALLED. → I know
The DOWNLOAD is a compressed application. → I know
What is INSTALLED is the uncompressed application. → I know
Anyway, it is not an explanation for more than 20GB of usage that would have been many more if i don’t cut the process.
Thanks.
You didn’t give us the list of programs that should be updated.
However, I guess you didn’t update for a very long time and many packages are now in the AUR and will be compiled from source.
For this, pamac can’t know the download size because it may vary a lot.
Hello,
When you install a new package, the system includes all updates ! It’s the way to be sure that the new package is in phase with the system (or the system is not on a late version as compare to the new package) and its libraries.
Secondly, an update is rarely over 1Gb, never at 2 or 20. So the system probably wanted to rebuilt some AUR package, and, currently ceph-libs or python2 are good candidates (deprecated, they have been moved to AUR) …
The uploaded files are in /var/cache/pacman/pkg. If you delete the files, the system will reload them on next try.
I think you could check for ceph-libs or python2 and see what would be deleted :
pacman -Rp python2
or
pacman -Rcsp python2
And before installing a new package, it’s better to do the update, and then only add an application. So you could better tell where the problem stands.
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If you interrupted the update process
nothing was installed.
First everything is downloaded, then it is checked, and only then it is installed.
If AUR packages where involved - they often will compile the software from source -
then this, one of these packages from the AUR, was the reason for taking up so much space.
The process of building software takes space.
It is later cleared - or can be easily cleared.
Ask again if this is the actual problem you are having at the moment.
But as already noted:
you where not particularly explicit,
did not mention what package did cause your problem.
As @Denis_Pom said:
when you install a package, the system runs a full update
to ensure that all does properly work together.
To say it again:
If you interrupted the update process
while something was still being built - which took too much space for your liking …
→
nothing was installed.
but all the files that build created are still there … taking up space …