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Re: Can/should I delete /tmp partition?

On 8/11/25 08:49, Default User wrote:

Hey guys,

I really apologize for keeping this already
long thread going, but - after doing some
research, I am not sure of the "right" way to
handle the /tmp and tmpfs situation.

I "seems" to work fine right now, but a lot of
things in life "seem" to work, until they don't.

Here is what I have now:


Debian GNU/Linux 13 (Stable), 64-bit
Kernel: Linux 6.12.38+deb13-amd64
Dell Inc. Inspiron 15 3000, Model 3511
11th Gen Intel® Core™ i3-1115G4 × 4
8.0 GiB physical memory
The laptop has two memory module slots and supports several configurations, apparently in single-channel mode (?): 

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/inspiron-15-3511-laptop/inspiron-3511-setup-and-specifications/specifications-of-inspiron-15-3511

Table 6. Memory specifications
...
Memory configurations supported
● 4 GB, 1 x 4 GB, DDR4, 2666 MHz/3200 MHz
● 8 GB, 1 x 8 GB, DDR4, 2666 MHz/3200 MHz
● 8 GB, 2 x 4 GB, DDR4, 2666 MHz/3200 MHz
● 12 GB, 1 x 4 GB + 1 x 8 GB, DDR4, 2666 MHz/3200 MHz
● 16 GB, 2 x 8 GB, DDR4, 2666 MHz/3200 MHz
● 16 GB, 1 x 16 GB, DDR4, 2666 MHz/3200 MHz
Linux can tell you what memory modules are installed. Please run the following command in a terminal as root and post the prompt, command, and output: 

# dmidecode -t 17 | egrep '^\s*(Handle|Size|Speed|Manufacturer|Part)'



Intel® UHD Graphics (TGL GT2)
Firmware version: 1.37.
Desktop: Gnome version 48
Windowing system: Wayland
Internal drive: nvme, 256 Gb (238 GiB)
You are fortunate in that the laptop has two disk drive bays, but the large battery option blocks the 2.5" SATA bay: 

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/inspiron-15-3511-laptop/inspiron-3511-setup-and-specifications/specifications-of-inspiron-15-3511

Storage
...
Your computer supports one of the following configurations:
● One 2.5-inch SATA hard drive
● One M.2 2230/2280 for solid-state drive
● One 2.5-inch hard-drive and one M.2 2230/2280 solid-state drive/Intel Optane H20 
...
Table 11. Storage specifications

NOTE: Systems configured with a
54 Whr battery would not support a
2.5-inch hard drive.



Boots into: UEFI


lsblk:
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
nvme0n1     259:0    0 238.5G  0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1    0   512M  0 part /boot/efi
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2    0  23.3G  0 part /
├─nvme0n1p3 259:3    0   9.3G  0 part /var
├─nvme0n1p4 259:4    0   2.8G  0 part [SWAP]
└─nvme0n1p6 259:5    0 202.6G  0 part /home


/etc/fstab:
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name
devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# systemd generates mount units based on this file, see
systemd.mount(5).
# Please run 'systemctl daemon-reload' after making changes here.
#
# <file system>                                   <mount point> <type>
<options>        <dump> <pass>
# / was on /dev/nvme0n1p2 during installation
UUID=4fdd4399-6267-404a-a292-cdc7761df3c9         /             ext4
errors=remount-ro  0    1
# /boot/efi was on /dev/nvme0n1p1 during installation
UUID=26EE-0EF5                                    /boot/efi     vfat
umask=0077         0    1
# /home was on /dev/nvme0n1p6 during installation
UUID=00f0c2db-0490-4354-b949-f9af11a7f001         /home         ext4
defaults           0    2
# /tmp was on /dev/nvme0n1p5 during installation
# UUID=6a105a72-f5d5-441b-b926-1e405151ee84       /tmp          ext4
defaults           0    2
# /var was on /dev/nvme0n1p3 during installation
UUID=8bfeee23-9c09-45b7-a73e-bd2ff43e207c         /var          ext4
defaults           0    2
# swap was on /dev/nvme0n1p4 during installation
UUID=e2a56ec3-99d4-4b40-9aa4-24975143cdc7         none          swap
sw                 0    0


mount:
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs
(rw,nosuid,relatime,size=3884888k,nr_inodes=971222,mode=755,inode64)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts
(rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=600,ptmxmode=000)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs
(rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=787696k,mode=755,inode64)
/dev/nvme0n1p2 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs
(rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,inode64)
cgroup2 on /sys/fs/cgroup type cgroup2
(rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,nsdelegate,memory_recursiveprot)
pstore on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
efivarfs on /sys/firmware/efi/efivars type efivarfs
(rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
bpf on /sys/fs/bpf type bpf (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,mode=700)
systemd-1 on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type autofs
(rw,relatime,fd=40,pgrp=1,timeout=0,minproto=5,maxproto=5,direct,pipe_i
no=1668)
mqueue on /dev/mqueue type mqueue (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /run/lock type tmpfs
(rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=5120k,inode64)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs
(rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
hugetlbfs on /dev/hugepages type hugetlbfs
(rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,pagesize=2M)
tracefs on /sys/kernel/tracing type tracefs
(rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /run/credentials/systemd-journald.service type tmpfs
(ro,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,nosymfollow,size=1024k,nr_inodes=1024,
mode=700,inode64,noswap)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl
(rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
configfs on /sys/kernel/config type configfs
(rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs
(rw,nosuid,nodev,size=3938476k,nr_inodes=1048576,inode64)
/dev/nvme0n1p3 on /var type ext4 (rw,relatime)
/dev/nvme0n1p6 on /home type ext4 (rw,relatime)
/dev/nvme0n1p1 on /boot/efi type vfat
(rw,relatime,fmask=0077,dmask=0077,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortna
me=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc
(rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /run/user/1000 type tmpfs
(rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,size=787692k,nr_inodes=196923,mode=700,uid=10
00,gid=1000,inode64)
gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/1000/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse
(rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=1000)
portal on /run/user/1000/doc type fuse.portal
(rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=1000)


df -h:
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev            3.8G     0  3.8G   0% /dev
tmpfs           770M  1.9M  768M   1% /run
/dev/nvme0n1p2   23G  9.6G   13G  45% /
tmpfs           3.8G  8.0K  3.8G   1% /dev/shm
efivarfs        374K  229K  141K  63% /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
tmpfs           5.0M   12K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
tmpfs           1.0M     0  1.0M   0% /run/credentials/systemd-
journald.service
tmpfs           3.8G   88K  3.8G   1% /tmp
/dev/nvme0n1p3  9.1G  3.0G  5.7G  35% /var
/dev/nvme0n1p6  199G   53G  136G  29% /home
/dev/nvme0n1p1  511M   60M  452M  12% /boot/efi
tmpfs           770M  224K  770M   1% /run/user/1000



I can get other information, if necessary.

In general, this is at least "adequate" for my current needs.
(Except that Dell was too cheap or greedy to have virtualization
support, even thought the processor has it! But that's another
story . . . )

I don't do anything that really stresses the system, such as
audio/video production, etc. Just modest single-user SOHO stuff.

Note: since the computer is a fairly recent (circa 2023-2024)
laptop, it is almost impossible to open it up to add more RAM or
more internal drive capacity.
:(



It's easy when you have the right information, materials, and tools:

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/inspiron-15-3511-laptop/inspiron-3511-service-manual/working-inside-your-computer?guid=guid-dd3ae169-a824-4f1d-832e-585b176f6faf

https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Dell_Inspiron_15-3511

https://www.ifixit.com/products/spudger

https://www.ifixit.com/products/phillips-00-screwdriver
So I probably don't need much swap space.
I use ~1 GiB for swap on my *nix desktops, workstations, and servers for my SOHO network. It is enough.
(As an aside, I tried running with no swap in the past. The systems crashed under memory pressure.) 



I do occasionally clean up
/var when it gets significantly above 50% full.

I assumed that memory would, if needed, use the /swap partition the
same way it was using the /tmp partition.

But I think I have read that the /tmp partition will preserve some
.tmp and .lock files between reboots. I don't know if that is good,
bad, or "depends".

(Note: if given a choice between performance and data safety, I
would choose safety every time!)

And I got the impression that /tmp partition is or will be deprecated.
That's why I removed /tmp partition.

So . . .

Should I go back and repartition with a 2 Gb /tmp partition, as it was
before? And would I have to create a new initramfs? (I did not do that
when I removed the /tmp partition after the upgrade).

Or just leave it as it is now?

Or do something else?

INB4: "Get a new computer".
Sure. Real Soon Now . . .
I would ignore the old 2 GB partition. The next time you do a fresh install, you can partition as desired.
I run the Xfce graphical desktp on my daily driver, and install the "System Load Monitor" Xfce panel applet to monitor CPU usage, memory usage, and swap usage. I suggest using this if you use Xfce, or looking for an equivalent if you use a different desktop. 


David
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