[gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage

[Fernando Meira]

Hi,
this is probably an old discussion, sorry for bring it up again.

When I joined Gentoo (a few months ago) I got the idea that I could control very well the space that gentoo would require. That would be great because of my 4.6G available to it. Then, not so long time ago I got very surprised with how much less space available I had when I didn't have (almost) anything installed. Now it's completely full and I'm the middle of an emerge :(

Well, tears apart, I would like to know if there's a good way to control the space usage of portage, since it is the reason for my problem.
My /usr/portage and /var/tmp/portage/ take 2.2G which is almost half of the partition.

What I have installed:
 - some (split) ebuilds of kde 3.4.1
 - e16
 - e17
 - firefox
 - gimp
 - acrobat reader 7
 - xmms, amsn (and maybe a few more small packages)

What I've found until now:
 - clear /usr/portage/distfiles and /var/tmp/portage after an emerge, or regularly (using tmpreaper)
 - there are some users-made scripts (still buggy) that look for old ebuilds in portage tree and erases them (http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-3011-highlight-portage+space+usage.html )

Any comments/ideas/scripts about this, or everyone has plenty space to spare...

Cheers,
Fernando