Re: What is the apt cache good for?
On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 05:34:59PM +0000, Hendrik Boom wrote:
> 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?
When you apt-get or aptitude something, it does this:
-download DEB file to /var/cache/apt/archive
-runs dpkg on the DEB file in /var/cache/apt/archive
if you need to reinstall a package, /var/cache/apt/archive is searched
first, to avoid re-downloading the file.
All the files needed for removing/purging/etc. the package are placed in
/var/lib/dpkg/info. So the DEB is not used.
hope that explains,
k
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