Cleaning up the dpkg status file? [Was: Re: Debian vs Red Hat??? I need info.]
Ethan Benson <erbenson@alaska.net> writes:
> On Sat, May 20, 2000 at 07:07:00PM +0200, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> > That is a result of the fact that rpm uses a binary database for its
> > data, while dpkg uses a large number of text-files instead. The
> > advantage of that is that it is robust (if a single file gets corrupted
> > it's not much of a problem), and that it is possible to fix or modify
> > things by hand using a normal text editor if needed.
>
> this is a tremendous advantage of dpkg, it should never be changed to
> use a binary database. the human readable/editable dpkg database has
> saved me from having to reinstall a system from scratch when the /var
> partition was destroyed and had to be restored with a slightly out of
> date backup. dpkg was broken due to the inconsistent databases but it
> only took a little bit of editing to fix it.
Concerning this databases, a remark and a question: after a long time
of updating and upgrading, installing and purging, I've got the
impression that it takes longer and longer time for dpkg to read the
database before taking an action. When looking at the `status' file, I
can see numerous packages which I installed and tested and then purged
out again, many of them don't even exist any more in the Debian
packaging system. Would it help to start up dpkg a little bit quicker
if I clean up the database from all this stuff (and if yes, is there a
automatic way of doing this)?
Greetings and thanks for your answers,
joachim
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