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Vivek
Asked: 2011-10-13 11:59:05 +0800 CST

var/cache/apt/archives occupying huge space

  • 772

I am in the process of cleaning up my system. And I see a lot of space occupied by this folder /var/cache/apt/archives (1.5GB). Is it absolutely necessary to keep all these archives?

cleanup

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    You don't need to keep them around if you don't want them. Executing a

    sudo apt-get clean

    will clean out the directory.

    • 160

  2. Seems like

    sudo apt-get autoclean

    is a better choice than 

    sudo apt-get clean

    autoclean will only remove "useless" archives

    From the man page:

    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.

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  3. You can adjust settings in Synaptic package manager, menu Settings/Preferences, the Files tab. From there you can also delete the cache.

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  4. It is better to save packages elsewhere then clean it up [Jorge Castro's process]. When you reinstall OS or a package it will not download again which save time and bandwidth. apt-get first check require packages in local storage[/var/cache/apt/archives] if does not exists then download else just do install. So you can save packages for future uses.

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