Notices

Let's not burn straw people. Being allowed to do something and it being a good idea are two different things. He didn't say not to do it, he just pointed out (rightfully) that a lot of consideration has been made by the developers of which files should go on the much faster root flash memory.

I apparently wasn't clear enough in my joke back on page one that in fixing his "optification" problem, he was breaking the "optimization" solution. The unwillingness of the OP to recognize the hints led to the argument with ossipena, who could have been more specific as Crashdamage finally was, but was saying the same thing between the lines.

You can copy the /usr-folder to eMMC and use it instead of the one on the NAND (with mount --bind for example). Only some files are needed to boot, so don't delete the one on the NAND. Booting is a bit slower, but you won't feel any difference in general speed of the device. There is a usefull thread: "Repartition the internal drive" which contains very good instructions from Ruskie...

very very interesting post!
really thanks to all.
just a dubt: better way is uninstall all apps coming from extra dev&test (red packages in Storage Usage) or "Repartition the internal drive" as says mankir?

First of all, not all red packages are non-optified. The app sets in red all files that are not in /home/opt which is wrong. OpenTTD, e.g., has files set in non-opt locations, but the actual files are symlinked if you take the time to look carefully.

Second of all, the solutions you mention are not equivalent. Uninstalling stuff you don't really need is by the book, repartitioning breaks the compatibility with all other devices and might require you to -say- reflash the device to get a system update or break something in unforseen ways. One is for people who already know the answer. I hate to say this because other people were more helpful to me than I am to you, but repartitioning is a but like the root account. If you have to ask, you shouldn't be there doing stuff.

Thirdly, there is one heck of a difference between theory and practice. In theory, one should be able to install all apps ever built, because the root is not used and the install can be expanded, symlinked, heck, even mounted off-site via internet, storing apps on a PC. In practice, however, even optified apps have SOME data on the root, for performance reasons, not-that-much-anyway reasons, etc. If you ran out of space, you are either overdoing it or installed some bad, bad apps. If you don't feel like getting dirt all over you, perhaps a bit of a wait would do one good.

Finally, apps could depend on libs that are not optimized, versions that are obscure, etc. Not all sizes are apparent. E.g. Google Latitude is some 600K, but pulls several libs only it uses up to 6 MB and then the Qt4-webkit that is 17MB unoptimified, at a peak total of 24MB or so. Perhaps a single app could give you more back than all these experiments.

I'm hovering over 37 MB free with no effort. Estimates are around 60 with no risk (disable repositories, relocate non-critical files like boot screens, themes, slimming down apps like MC - BTW, did you know that the 6 MB MC can be slimmed down to 500K minus help files and localization?).

So you aren't nostalgic about the N800 and N810, where we could totally stop worrying about running out of space at all, and now everyone is talking about how they can save a few meg this way or that? You think maybe everyone was crazy back then?

I am pretty much stunned about this new situation and very surprised. I check my rootfs after practically every new program I install. I didn't have to do that with earlier tablets.

i've got mine slimmed down to 0K by uninstalling it. the terminal is all i need.