On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 05:34:59PM +0000, Hendrik Boom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> was heard to say: > I can get some space back by doing apt-get autoclean. > > I can get more back by apt-get clean. > > This deletes lots and lots of files from my system. Judging from du's > output, /var/cache/apt/ takes a bit more than a third of my disk space. > > Now I've been keeping these files around, just in case. > > But do I actually need any of these files? Or are they only needed while > I'm actually busy installing stuff? After those packages have been > installed, are the corresponding files in the cache good for anything at > all? Perhaps for deleting the packages later? > > (By the way, I use aptitude)
Most of that space is stored in /var/cache/apt/archives. The rest of /var/cache/apt can be deleted but it'll be recreated next time you run apt; it's a binary cache of data that's used to speed apt up. I think it's mostly a holdover from when Internet connections were much slower than they are today. apt keeps all the .debs it downloads in /var/cache/apt/archives, so that if you decide to remove some software and then want to re-install it later, you don't have to download it a second time. It's useful for some purposes (e.g., you can copy those files to another machine rather than downloading them twice), but it also tends to clog people's /var partitions. You can delete all the downloaded .deb files by running "aptitude clean". Daniel -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
