Re: Erase cache, clean registry in Linux
On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 13:20, lee <lee@yun.yagibdah.de> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 11:40:38AM -0800, Kelly Clowers wrote:
>> On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 10:42, lee <lee@yun.yagibdah.de> wrote:
>> > That shouldn't be there in the first place. You end up with hundreds
>> > of megabytes of totally useless thumbnails
>>
>> They are not useless, they keep thumbnail display times reasonable.
>> I have used programs that generate thumbnails on the fly, per session
>> and it is slow and annoying.
>
> Ok, if it helps you, it's good to have them. But then, using them
> should be an option, and I would want to be asked if I wanted to use
> that option. Dumping an unlimited amount of files into a hidden
> directory, eating up an unlimited amount of disk space without even
> telling the user about it is retarded software design.
They could and maybe should put in an option to not use a cache,
but Gnome apps probably wouldn't want to.
>> They are needed to keep display times reasonable. All programs
>> should use the same cache, and many do. If you have a favorite
>> program that does not use ~/.thumbnails, you should probably
>> file a bug.
>
> How am I supposed to know which programs would use a cache and where
> the cache is when they don't even tell me? These files remain
> there indefinitely if I don't delete them myself, no matter if I'm
> using them or not.
Ideally, the XDG dirs would become universal, and well known,
like /etc, /usr, et al.
> Why didn't they make it so that the user can specify how much disk
> space can be used for thumbnails?
Maybe they didn't think of it. The spec hasn't changed in a while,
but it is only 0.7. Maybe it is time for 0.8 with a space limiter and
~/.cache/thumbnails/ instead of ~/.thumbnails
<snip>
> Imho it's better to design software so that it doesn't waste
> resources. I probably haven't used 99.99% of the 350MB thumbnails in
> more than two years, but now I'm supposed to spend $500+ on getting
> new disks for crap like that? I don't think so. But if you want to
> give me the money for it, you're welcome :)
350 MB? I have not cleaned my thumbnails since early 2007 or so
and I had 1.6 GB. And my /home disk is only 120 GB, but I still
don't care. I would care if my ~ is messy, but XDG standards are
starting to fix that. But I don't care if large amounts of data are
stored as long as it is in one logical place, where I can see it and
control it if I want to, and it is serving some purpose.
> As to setting up cron jobs to automatically delete data, I'm very
> reluctant to do that. If something goes wrong, the job might delete
> data I don't want it to delete. Something as simple as filenames
> containing spaces can already make it go horribly wrong.
I suppose, although nothing under .thumbnails should have a space
or anything like that.
But if, as you say, you haven't used 99.99% of the thumbnails in
more than two years, then if you delete it once, it should take more
than two years before more than a megabyte or two of thumbnails
are added back in.
Cheers,
Kelly Clowers
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