https://mrtomlinux.org/tags/xargs/ Recent content in Xargs on Linux Café Hugo en Tue, 19 May 2026 09:00:02 +0200 https://mrtomlinux.org/post/2026-05-19-reclaiming-disk-space-with-find-and-xargs-aft/ Tue, 19 May 2026 09:00:02 +0200 https://mrtomlinux.org/post/2026-05-19-reclaiming-disk-space-with-find-and-xargs-aft/ <h2 id="introduction-to-disk-space-reclamation">Introduction to Disk Space Reclamation</h2> <p>I&rsquo;ve lost count of how many times I&rsquo;ve run into issues with package managers leaving behind unnecessary files on my Linux systems. This can happen due to incomplete package removals, failed updates, or simply because the package manager didn&rsquo;t clean up after itself. In my experience, this is more common than you&rsquo;d think, especially when using less popular packages or experimenting with different distributions.</p> <h2 id="identifying-the-problem">Identifying the Problem</h2> <p>To start reclaiming disk space, you first need to identify where the unnecessary files are located. A good starting point is to use the <code>find</code> command, which allows you to search for files based on various criteria such as size, modification time, and permissions. For example, to find all files larger than 100MB in the <code>/usr</code> directory, you can use the following command:</p>