clearing out /tmp safely

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Tue, 17 Feb 2004, Alexandre Strube wrote:

> Em Ter, 2004-01-20 às 21:44, Matt H. escreveu:
> 
> Hello Matt
> 
> > I would like to clean out my /tmp partition as per the tip at 
> > http://fedoranews.org/krishnan/tips/tip014.shtml. However, just one small
> > query. Is there any folders/files in the /tmp directory that shouldn't be
> > deleted? My /tmp currently contains directories such as gconfd-root,
> > kde-root, ksocket-root, lost+found, mcop-root, a number of ssh-*, and
> > files such as crxmlqWMLkc, a number of libGL.la-*, sockets such as
> > mapping-root,..etc.
> > Will all these entries safely be recreated when needed? Just a
> > precautionary measure; I realise it is after all a "temporary" directory! 
> 
> Well, most of these files are from running applications - so, if you cd
> /tmp; rm -rf * 
> you will certainly to restart some of those applications. In fact,
> closing any gnome or kde session, erasing the files and restarting X
> (with a ctrl+alt+backspace) will do the trick.

if you, like me, use /tmp for a lot of *very* temporary storage, you
can create a "tmpfs" filesystem that will disappear upon reboot.
as an example, make one under /tmp/junk or something, and use that
directory for stuff that you *know* you're not going to need 10
minutes from now.

rday