/tmp folder and gcc

Question

I am using the maemo Operating System and the GCC compiler. I have an error when I compile an application: there is no enough space on /tmp. I have 10% of my space free so I don't understand why this happens.. anyway, is it possible to change the GCC configuration in order to use another folder (in another partition)?

Answer 1

Set your TMPDIR environment variable to where you want GCC to put your temporary files. Or, use the -pipe flag to keep temporary files (except object files) in memory.

Answer 2

Most likely your /tmp directory is mounted as a tmpfs filesystem. This means that the files in /tmp are actually stored in memory, not on disk. If this is the case /tmp will be limited to what you can fit in memory+swap, and everything in /tmp will be lost across reboots.

Use mount or df -T to see how /tmp is mounted.