On Thu, 13 Jun 2019 14:46:33 -0400
Gene Heskett <gheskett@...> wrote:

> On Thursday 13 June 2019 01:18:33 pm Russell Brown wrote:
> 
> > Gene,
> >
> > Quoth Gene Heskett.....
> >
> > >And I didn't want to load up the u-sd the
> > >pi boots from with all that tex stuff, probably 3 to 4 gigs worth.
> >
> > You might find this useful:
> >
> > 	dpkg-query -W --showformat='${Installed-Size;10}\t${Package}\n' |
> > sort -k1,1n
> >
> > Shows the installed packages in ascending size so you can see what's
> > eating the space and get rid of it with an "apt-get remove".
> 
> the space isn't the real problem, its the write cycles wearing out the 
> u-sd card. Its not squawking yet, but it is getting awfully slow at 
> writing. And I don't have a dd-able backup image to make another. If you 
> know of such a utility for armrf, please advise.

Dumb ways to create an image from the SD card being used by a specific pi,
no additional utilities required:

Plug a USB stick larger than the card into the pi, then use dd to write an
iso of the card onto it.  (Never tried this, but it should be possible.)

Or pull the card, stick it in a desktop or laptop (you may need to buy a microSD
to USB adapter for <$10 if you don't already have one) and image it like you 
would any other drive.

(Actually, you don't even need to image the card as such--the pi's bootloader 
is burned into the board and the partition geometry is dead simple, so it's 
possible to get a valid card just by copying directories around.)

E. Liddell