Re: /var/archive

[Ken Irving <fnkci@uaf.edu>]

On Wed, Jan 23, 2008 at 05:38:42PM +0000, Tony van der Hoff wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've just moved to Debian Etch from 10 years on Mandriva, so a bit of a
> newbie here.
> 
> Can anyone tell me what significance /var/archives has? I have a 1.25 GB
> /var partition, which always used to be plenty, but archives is now eating
> up 1.05 GB, so I'll have to move (or preferably delete) it.
> 
> Any advice, please?

I don't have anything under /var/archives, but maybe the following 
snippets from apt-get(1) will help:

   clean
       clean clears out the local repository of retrieved package files.
       It removes everything but the lock file from
       /var/cache/apt/archives/ and /var/cache/apt/archives/partial/. When
       APT is used as a dselect(8) method, clean is run automatically.
       Those who do not use dselect will likely want to run apt-get clean
       from time to time to free up disk space.

   autoclean
       Like clean, autoclean clears out the local repository of retrieved
       package files. The difference is that it only removes package files
       that can no longer be downloaded, and are largely useless. This
       allows a cache to be maintained over a long period without it
       growing out of control. The configuration option
       APT::Clean-Installed will prevent installed packages from being
       erased if it is set to off.

Running apt-get clean will likely reduce the stuff cached in your /var
partition.

Ken

-- 
Ken Irving, fnkci+debianuser@uaf.edu