The Silent Disk Hog
In Ubuntu (and most modern Linux distributions), when an application crashes due to a segmentation fault or a severe memory error, the system doesn’t just close the program. By default, the systemd-coredump utility automatically generates a “core dump”—a massive file containing the exact contents of the application’s memory at the exact millisecond it crashed. These files are invaluable for software developers debugging C++ code, but they are utterly useless to the average desktop user. Worse, if a background service is quietly crashing repeatedly, these core dumps can rapidly consume gigabytes of precious hard drive space without you ever receiving a warning.
Disabling Core Dumps
To protect your storage space and stop Ubuntu from automatically generating massive core dump files when applications crash, you must restrict the system’s dump limits.
You must modify the system security limits configuration file. Open your terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T). You need root privileges to edit this file. Type sudo nano /etc/security/limits.conf and press Enter. Use your arrow keys to scroll to the very bottom of the file, past all the commented text (the lines starting with #). Add the following line exactly: * hard core 0. This tells the system that for all users (*), the hard limit for core file size is zero bytes. Press Ctrl+O then Enter to save the file, and Ctrl+X to exit the nano editor. You must completely restart your computer for this new kernel-level limit to take effect.