Is 30GiB root still enough for regular users?

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1

I’ve been hitting the limit a lot lately. Did a lot of system maintenance nearly everytime for the past 5 updates.

I think for regular users, 90 GiB should be a fair standard. Is that too much or should 60 GiB suffice?

2

If you offload your Timeshift backups to an external drive, you can create more much breathing room, even with 30 GiB for your root filesystem.

(This is what I do with a spare USB drive.)

I also do not keep any cache of older packages (configurable in Pamac’s settings.)

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3

yes, that should be enough for a regular user. i’m always surprised that linux is very efficient and space saving. 30 GB for root should also be enough even if i would be a little bit afraid and give it a little bit more, but all in 30 GB are a good starting point.

4

I don’t have timeshift. I probably should try keeping 0 packages.

5

In what way?

It depends on what you define as “regular” …
If you use snaps and/or app images
it can get tight quite quickly.

Also, if you use ext4 as a filesystem - it, by default, reserves 5% of the available space for the use of the super user only (root)
This can add up to a very significant amount of unavailable space on large drives.
This can be changed with
tune2fs -m 1 /dev/sdxy
(for only 1% reserved space)
for example.

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6

If you use btrfs it is best to not go over 75%

You can find good Information about Btrfs in the wiki

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7

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