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freeing up some space

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  freeing up some space "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2022-01-11 19:30 +0100
    Re: freeing up some space Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> - 2022-01-11 20:00 +0100
    Re: freeing up some space Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2022-01-11 20:00 +0100
    Re: freeing up some space Cindy Sue Causey <butterflybytes@gmail.com> - 2022-01-11 20:30 +0100
      Re: freeing up some space David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2022-01-11 21:10 +0100
      Re: freeing up some space "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2022-01-11 22:40 +0100
        Re: freeing up some space "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> - 2022-01-11 22:50 +0100
        Re: freeing up some space Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2022-01-15 17:00 +0100
    Re: freeing up some space "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> - 2022-01-11 21:10 +0100
      Re: freeing up some space Kent West <westk@acu.edu> - 2022-01-11 22:10 +0100
        Re: freeing up some space "c. marlow" <debian@cwm030.com> - 2022-01-11 23:20 +0100
          Re: freeing up some space "c. marlow" <debian@cwm030.com> - 2022-01-11 23:30 +0100
          Re: freeing up some space Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> - 2022-01-11 23:40 +0100
      Re: freeing up some space Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2022-01-12 00:20 +0100
        Re: freeing up some space David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2022-01-12 00:30 +0100
        Re: freeing up some space Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> - 2022-01-12 00:30 +0100
    Re: freeing up some space Marco Möller <talby@debianlists.mobilxpress.net> - 2022-01-11 23:10 +0100
      Re: freeing up some space Ralph Katz <ralph@ralphkatz.com> - 2022-01-12 04:20 +0100
    Re: freeing up some space David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> - 2022-01-12 05:10 +0100
      Re: freeing up some space "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2022-01-12 17:00 +0100
    Re: freeing up some space David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2022-01-12 06:50 +0100
      Re: freeing up some space "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2022-01-12 17:10 +0100

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#243878 — freeing up some space

So I'm poking around with mc,  and happened across /var/cache/apt/archives which has a LOT of *.deb files in it, and which seems to include many versions of the same package,  some of them many years old,  going all the way back to 2013.  I guess I've been running debian a little longer than I'd thought...

Is it okay to just delete older versions of these files?  Or should I be doing something using one of the package management tools?  I've mostly used synaptic,  but am also aware of apt-get,  apt,  aptitude,  and am not real clear on their comparative capabilities.

I'm looking at over 7500 files amounting to over 9.5GB.

I also see /var/cache/dictionaries-common,  which appears to be tied to a spelling checker,  which I don't use here.  And /var/cache/samba,  which I also don't use -- there isn't a windoze machine around here at all.

What's the best way to get all of this excess stuff out of the system?


-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

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#243881

Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote: 
> So I'm poking around with mc,  and happened across /var/cache/apt/archives which has a LOT of *.deb files in it, and which seems to include many versions of the same package,  some of them many years old,  going all the way back to 2013.  I guess I've been running debian a little longer than I'd thought...
> 
> Is it okay to just delete older versions of these files?  Or should I be doing something using one of the package management tools?  I've mostly used synaptic,  but am also aware of apt-get,  apt,  aptitude,  and am not real clear on their comparative capabilities.

"apt clean" will wipe it all out safely; if you need them, they
will be downloaded again.

Or you can remove .deb files by hand, but...
 
> I'm looking at over 7500 files amounting to over 9.5GB.

That's a lot.

> I also see /var/cache/dictionaries-common,  which appears to be tied to a spelling checker,  which I don't use here.  And /var/cache/samba,  which I also don't use -- there isn't a windoze machine around here at all.

On the machine I'm on now, dictionaries-common is a whopping 48KB, and the
samba cache is 16KB. Do you have any actual data in there?

> What's the best way to get all of this excess stuff out of the system?

In general, files sitting in /var/cache can be deleted, and the
worst that should happen is that they will be re-downloaded or
recreated or not be available when you end up wanting them. It's
like /tmp but longer-lived. The directory structures should
remain intact until purged by removal of the packages that put
them there.

-dsr-

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#243882

On Tue 11 Jan 2022 at 13:25:27 -0500, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:

> So I'm poking around with mc,  and happened across
> /var/cache/apt/archives which has a LOT of *.deb files in it, and
> which seems to include many versions of the same package,  some of
> them many years old,  going all the way back to 2013.  I guess I've
> been running debian a little longer than I'd thought...

In the past downloaded packages were kept by default. That is no
longer the case.
 
> Is it okay to just delete older versions of these files?  Or should I
> be doing something using one of the package management tools?  I've
> mostly used synaptic,  but am also aware of apt-get,  apt,  aptitude,
> and am not real clear on their comparative capabilities.
> 
> I'm looking at over 7500 files amounting to over 9.5GB.

  apt clean

> I also see /var/cache/dictionaries-common,  which appears to be tied
> to a spelling checker,  which I don't use here.  And /var/cache/samba,
> which I also don't use -- there isn't a windoze machine around here at
> all.

I wouldn't purge dictionaries-common. Try

  apt purge dictionaries-common

and make a judgement.

You can probably get rid of samba.

-- 
Brian.

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#243885

On 1/11/22, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. <roy@rtellason.com> wrote:
> So I'm poking around with mc,  and happened across /var/cache/apt/archives
> which has a LOT of *.deb files in it, and which seems to include many
> versions of the same package,  some of them many years old,  going all the
> way back to 2013.  I guess I've been running debian a little longer than I'd
> thought...
>
> Is it okay to just delete older versions of these files?  Or should I be
> doing something using one of the package management tools?  I've mostly used
> synaptic,  but am also aware of apt-get,  apt,  aptitude,  and am not real
> clear on their comparative capabilities.
>
> I'm looking at over 7500 files amounting to over 9.5GB.
>
> I also see /var/cache/dictionaries-common,  which appears to be tied to a
> spelling checker,  which I don't use here.  And /var/cache/samba,  which I
> also don't use -- there isn't a windoze machine around here at all.
>
> What's the best way to get all of this excess stuff out of the system?


Just chiming in until someone can respond with recent firsthand
experience. If you go to e.g. "man apt" or "man apt-get", you'll see
flag options that are about cleaning up downloaded files. I did this
once a couple years ago and so can't remember which one worked for
what you're asking, but it does work. Whichever option it is, it
leaves the currently installed deb in place and cleanses out anything
that's no longer in use.

Thank you to the Developers who have left this as a User CHOICE that
must be manually addressed if a different option is desired. Users
have their various reasons for maintaining older install debs. It's
nice to know they're always safe from sudden, silent deletion.

Afterthought as I write that because of an experience that I
encountered. There's additionally a value you can define that
automatically performs the above function every time you update and
then upgrade your system's packages.

Remembering that detail led to a search that didn't find a tip on
which file contains that changeable value, but I did find the
following (might need fixed to be one usable line):

https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html#_basic_package_management_operations_with_the_commandline

If that link doesn't bounce partway down the page to the appropriate
section, CTRL+F (or similar browser find feature) on that "operations
with the commandline" part of the link should help. It's Section 2.2.2
that contains those various interesting values.

If anyone test drives those for the first time, especially without
fully understanding what the notes are saying the options do, PLEASE
make sure to back up your system first. Been there, done that without
backing up in the past. It's not pretty..

Cindy :)
-- 
Cindy-Sue Causey
Talking Rock, Pickens County, Georgia, USA
* runs with birdseed *

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#243888

On Tue 11 Jan 2022 at 14:25:47 (-0500), Cindy Sue Causey wrote:
> On 1/11/22, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. <roy@rtellason.com> wrote:
> > So I'm poking around with mc,  and happened across /var/cache/apt/archives
> > which has a LOT of *.deb files in it, and which seems to include many
> > versions of the same package,  some of them many years old,  going all the
> > way back to 2013.  I guess I've been running debian a little longer than I'd
> > thought...
> >
> > Is it okay to just delete older versions of these files?  Or should I be
> > doing something using one of the package management tools?  I've mostly used
> > synaptic,  but am also aware of apt-get,  apt,  aptitude,  and am not real
> > clear on their comparative capabilities.
> >
> > I'm looking at over 7500 files amounting to over 9.5GB.
> >
> > I also see /var/cache/dictionaries-common,  which appears to be tied to a
> > spelling checker,  which I don't use here.  And /var/cache/samba,  which I
> > also don't use -- there isn't a windoze machine around here at all.
> >
> > What's the best way to get all of this excess stuff out of the system?
> 
> Just chiming in until someone can respond with recent firsthand
> experience. If you go to e.g. "man apt" or "man apt-get", you'll see
> flag options that are about cleaning up downloaded files. I did this
> once a couple years ago and so can't remember which one worked for
> what you're asking, but it does work. Whichever option it is, it
> leaves the currently installed deb in place and cleanses out anything
> that's no longer in use.

No firsthand experience (I run apt-cacher-ng, so I clean the
cache all the time), but I think Cindy Sue is talking about
autoclean:

>From   man apt-get (buster):

  autoclean (and the auto-clean alias since 1.1)
      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.

Cheers,
David.

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#243890

On Tuesday 11 January 2022 02:25:47 pm Cindy Sue Causey wrote:
> On 1/11/22, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. <roy@rtellason.com> wrote:
> > So I'm poking around with mc,  and happened across /var/cache/apt/archives
> > which has a LOT of *.deb files in it, and which seems to include many
> > versions of the same package,  some of them many years old,  going all the
> > way back to 2013.  I guess I've been running debian a little longer than I'd
> > thought...
> >
> > Is it okay to just delete older versions of these files?  Or should I be
> > doing something using one of the package management tools?  

Apparently the info about what's in this directory is also stored in some database somewhere,  so just going in there and deleting a bunch of stuff will probably break something...

> > I've mostly used synaptic,  but am also aware of apt-get,  apt,  aptitude,  and am not real
> > clear on their comparative capabilities.

Time to read some man pages and some of the docs that also got installed on my system...   :-)

> > I'm looking at over 7500 files amounting to over 9.5GB.
> >
> > I also see /var/cache/dictionaries-common,  which appears to be tied to a
> > spelling checker,  which I don't use here.  And /var/cache/samba,  which I
> > also don't use -- there isn't a windoze machine around here at all.
> >
> > What's the best way to get all of this excess stuff out of the system?
> 
> Just chiming in until someone can respond with recent firsthand
> experience. If you go to e.g. "man apt" or "man apt-get", you'll see
> flag options that are about cleaning up downloaded files. I did this
> once a couple years ago and so can't remember which one worked for
> what you're asking, but it does work. Whichever option it is, it
> leaves the currently installed deb in place and cleanses out anything
> that's no longer in use.

Somebody (maybe more than one somebody) suggested a "clean" option,  but apparently that will get rid of *ALL* of those files.  I'd kinda prefer to keep the most recent of any of them that are still being used.  In perusing the docs for aptitude,  I see that there's an option in there to "clean obsolete files",  which sounds like it'll do just that.  I don't see such an option in apt-get,  or elsewhere (so far).
 
> Thank you to the Developers who have left this as a User CHOICE that
> must be manually addressed if a different option is desired. Users
> have their various reasons for maintaining older install debs. It's
> nice to know they're always safe from sudden, silent deletion.

Yes,  it is nice having a choice about these things.
 
> Afterthought as I write that because of an experience that I
> encountered. There's additionally a value you can define that
> automatically performs the above function every time you update and
> then upgrade your system's packages.

I think that the default for aptitude is to not do what I mention above,  but it also appears that it's possible to make it do that by default by fiddling with a config file.  This would appear to be detailed in the section of the docs entitled "Configuraton File Reference",  which talks about what files are used (and their locations),  and then lists all of the options that are or can be in those files.
 
> Remembering that detail led to a search that didn't find a tip on
> which file contains that changeable value, but I did find the
> following (might need fixed to be one usable line):
> https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html#_basic_package_management_operations_with_the_commandline
> 
> If that link doesn't bounce partway down the page to the appropriate
> section, CTRL+F (or similar browser find feature) on that "operations
> with the commandline" part of the link should help. It's Section 2.2.2
> that contains those various interesting values.

Yeah.  But the detailed docs for aptitude are a whole lot more interesting and more detailed/explicit.
 
> If anyone test drives those for the first time, especially without
> fully understanding what the notes are saying the options do, PLEASE
> make sure to back up your system first. Been there, done that without
> backing up in the past. It's not pretty..
> 
> Cindy :)

From what I understand I should be able to get the software to show me what it's planning on doing before it actually goes ahead and does it.   :-)

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

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#243892

On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 04:32:20PM -0500, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> 
> Apparently the info about what's in this directory is also stored in some database somewhere,  so just going in there and deleting a bunch of stuff will probably break something...
> 

Yes.  

> > > I've mostly used synaptic,  but am also aware of apt-get,  apt,  aptitude,  and am not real
> > > clear on their comparative capabilities.
> 
> Time to read some man pages and some of the docs that also got installed on my system...   :-)
> 
> > > I'm looking at over 7500 files amounting to over 9.5GB.
> > >
> > > I also see /var/cache/dictionaries-common,  which appears to be tied to a
> > > spelling checker,  which I don't use here.  And /var/cache/samba,  which I
> > > also don't use -- there isn't a windoze machine around here at all.
> > >
> > > What's the best way to get all of this excess stuff out of the system?
> > 
> 
> Somebody (maybe more than one somebody) suggested a "clean" option,  but apparently that will get rid of *ALL* of those files.  I'd kinda prefer to keep the most recent of any of them that are still being used.  In perusing the docs for aptitude,  I see that there's an option in there to "clean obsolete files",  which sounds like it'll do just that.  I don't see such an option in apt-get,  or elsewhere (so far).

apt-get autoclean, yes, as recommended by others in the thread

> 
> Yeah.  But the detailed docs for aptitude are a whole lot more interesting and more detailed/explicit.
>  
> > If anyone test drives those for the first time, especially without
> > fully understanding what the notes are saying the options do, PLEASE
> > make sure to back up your system first. Been there, done that without
> > backing up in the past. It's not pretty..
> > 
> > Cindy :)
> 
> From what I understand I should be able to get the software to show me what it's planning on doing before it actually goes ahead and does it.   :-)
> 

Several of these also have --dry-run options or similar.

The quicker you can get yourself to 11, the happier you may well be :)

All the very best, as ever,

Andy Cater

> -- 
> Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
> ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
> be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
> -
> Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
> M Dakin
> 

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#244013

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

On Ma, 11 ian 22, 16:32:20, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> On Tuesday 11 January 2022 02:25:47 pm Cindy Sue Causey wrote:
> > On 1/11/22, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. <roy@rtellason.com> wrote:
> > > So I'm poking around with mc,  and happened across /var/cache/apt/archives
> > > which has a LOT of *.deb files in it, and which seems to include many
> > > versions of the same package,  some of them many years old,  going all the
> > > way back to 2013.  I guess I've been running debian a little longer than I'd
> > > thought...
> > >
> > > Is it okay to just delete older versions of these files?  Or should I be
> > > doing something using one of the package management tools?  
> 
> Apparently the info about what's in this directory is also stored in 
> some database somewhere,  so just going in there and deleting a bunch 
> of stuff will probably break something...

[citation needed]
 
> Somebody (maybe more than one somebody) suggested a "clean" option,  
> but apparently that will get rid of *ALL* of those files.  I'd kinda 
> prefer to keep the most recent of any of them that are still being 
> used.  In perusing the docs for aptitude,  I see that there's an 
> option in there to "clean obsolete files",  which sounds like it'll do 
> just that.  I don't see such an option in apt-get,  or elsewhere (so 
> far).

The manpage for apt-get just doesn't refere to them as "obsolete" but 
"largely useless"[1].

Regarding aptitude, you might want to take note of the difference 
between "obsolete files" and "obsolete packages". Both are interesting 
for your needs, especially after a dist/full-upgrade.

[1] just because a package can't be downloaded anymore from any 
/configured/ repository doesn't actually mean it's useless or obsolete.

Kind regards,
Andrei
-- 
http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser

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#243886

On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 01:25:27PM -0500, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> So I'm poking around with mc,  and happened across /var/cache/apt/archives which has a LOT of *.deb files in it, and which seems to include many versions of the same package,  some of them many years old,  going all the way back to 2013.  I guess I've been running debian a little longer than I'd thought...
> 
> Is it okay to just delete older versions of these files?  Or should I be doing something using one of the package management tools?  I've mostly used synaptic,  but am also aware of apt-get,  apt,  aptitude,  and am not real clear on their comparative capabilities.
> 

apt-get clean is a fairly useful command.

The original suggestion when you started the upgrade process was to 
do this in several steps but without spending days between and also
running apt-get autoremove between each step.

Synaptic is a graphical front end: behind that are tools like apt-get / 
aptitude/ apt
which are the command line tools.

Below that is dpkg - below that is manual editing of the package database
and files which is really only recommended as a very last resort when
your system is broken to a severe extent.

> I'm looking at over 7500 files amounting to over 9.5GB.
> 
> I also see /var/cache/dictionaries-common,  which appears to be tied to a spelling checker,  which I don't use here.  And /var/cache/samba,  which I also don't use -- there isn't a windoze machine around here at all.
> 
> What's the best way to get all of this excess stuff out of the system?
> 

If you remove the package that created the cache, then there are also
purge commands to remove configuration files and other directories: if
these can't remove all files, they will normally throw up a warning
saying why not.

All best, as ever,

Andy Cater

> 
> -- 
> Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
> ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
> be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
> -
> Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
> M Dakin
> 

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#243889

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 1:59 PM Andrew M.A. Cater <amacater@einval.com>
wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 01:25:27PM -0500, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> > So I'm poking around with mc,  and happened across
> /var/cache/apt/archives which has a LOT of *.deb files in it, and which
> seems to include many versions of the same package,  some of them many
> years old,  going all the way back to 2013.  I guess I've been running
> debian a little longer than I'd thought...
> >
> > Is it okay to just delete older versions of these files?  Or should I be
> doing something using one of the package management tools?  I've mostly
> used synaptic,  but am also aware of apt-get,  apt,  aptitude,  and am not
> real clear on their comparative capabilities.
> >
>

"aptitude clean"  will delete all the archived .deb files. I use this one
when I'm hurting for drive space, and don't foresee a need to reinstall any
of the packages.

"aptitude autoclean" will delete all the no-longer-downloadable archived
.deb files. I use this one when I want to tidy up the machine, but think
that maybe I might want to reinstall one of the packages and won't have a
working network connection at that time. If I'm not worried about dwindling
drive space, this is the one I use every few "aptitude full-upgrade"s.

I believe apt-get and apt have the same options.

-- 
Kent West                    <")))><
Westing Peacefully - http://kentwest.blogspot.com

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#243894

On Tue, 11 Jan 2022 15:07:02 -0600
Kent West <westk@acu.edu> wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 1:59 PM Andrew M.A. Cater
> <amacater@einval.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 01:25:27PM -0500, Roy J. Tellason, Sr.
> > wrote:
> > > So I'm poking around with mc,  and happened across
> > /var/cache/apt/archives which has a LOT of *.deb files in it, and
> > which seems to include many versions of the same package,  some of
> > them many years old,  going all the way back to 2013.  I guess I've
> > been running debian a little longer than I'd thought...

Wow, That's amazing! So that means you've only done in place upgrade
since 2013 with no nuke and pave's? 


====================
Thanks,
Chris

If you need to email me off list, please use chris@cwm030.com

Debian 11
Gnome3

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#243895

On Tue, 11 Jan 2022 16:06:05 -0600
"c. marlow" <debian@cwm030.com> wrote:
> 
> Wow, That's amazing! So that means you've only done in place upgrade
> since 2013 with no nuke and pave's? 
> 
> 

Correction:

Upgrades* 



====================
Thanks,
Chris

If you need to email me off list, please use chris@cwm030.com

Debian 11
Gnome3

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#243896

c. marlow wrote: 
> On Tue, 11 Jan 2022 15:07:02 -0600
> Kent West <westk@acu.edu> wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 1:59 PM Andrew M.A. Cater
> > <amacater@einval.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 01:25:27PM -0500, Roy J. Tellason, Sr.
> > > wrote:
> > > > So I'm poking around with mc,  and happened across
> > > /var/cache/apt/archives which has a LOT of *.deb files in it, and
> > > which seems to include many versions of the same package,  some of
> > > them many years old,  going all the way back to 2013.  I guess I've
> > > been running debian a little longer than I'd thought...
> 
> Wow, That's amazing! So that means you've only done in place upgrade
> since 2013 with no nuke and pave's? 

That should not be considered amazing. My house server has an continuous
history (via drive swaps, hardware upgrades, and complete transplants)
back to 2004, when a power-supply problem killed everything and
it turned out my backups had rotted.

-dsr-

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#243897

On Tue 11 Jan 2022 at 19:58:55 +0000, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 01:25:27PM -0500, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> > So I'm poking around with mc,  and happened across /var/cache/apt/archives which has a LOT of *.deb files in it, and which seems to include many versions of the same package,  some of them many years old,  going all the way back to 2013.  I guess I've been running debian a little longer than I'd thought...
> > 
> > Is it okay to just delete older versions of these files?  Or should I be doing something using one of the package management tools?  I've mostly used synaptic,  but am also aware of apt-get,  apt,  aptitude,  and am not real clear on their comparative capabilities.
> > 
> 
> apt-get clean is a fairly useful command.

Indeed it it is. But what useful function does it perform on a default
installation? Some users appear to think that downloaded and installed
packages are preserved in /vat/cache/apt/archives until they are cleared
out. They are not.

-- 
Brian.

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#243898

On Tue 11 Jan 2022 at 23:11:21 (+0000), Brian wrote:
> On Tue 11 Jan 2022 at 19:58:55 +0000, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
> > On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 01:25:27PM -0500, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> > > So I'm poking around with mc,  and happened across /var/cache/apt/archives which has a LOT of *.deb files in it, and which seems to include many versions of the same package,  some of them many years old,  going all the way back to 2013.  I guess I've been running debian a little longer than I'd thought...
> > > 
> > > Is it okay to just delete older versions of these files?  Or should I be doing something using one of the package management tools?  I've mostly used synaptic,  but am also aware of apt-get,  apt,  aptitude,  and am not real clear on their comparative capabilities.
> > 
> > apt-get clean is a fairly useful command.
> 
> Indeed it it is. But what useful function does it perform on a default
> installation? Some users appear to think that downloaded and installed
> packages are preserved in /vat/cache/apt/archives until they are cleared
> out. They are not.

Eh?

~# ls -l /var/cache/apt/archives/
total 4
-rw-r----- 1 root root    0 Dec 12 21:09 lock
drwx------ 2 _apt root 4096 Dec 29 17:43 partial
~# apt-get -o Acquire::http::Proxy="http://192.168.1.14:3142/" install iwd
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  iwd
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 561 kB of archives.
After this operation, 2232 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye/main amd64 iwd amd64 1.14-3 [561 kB]
Fetched 561 kB in 0s (3079 kB/s)
Retrieving bug reports... Done
Parsing Found/Fixed information... Done
Selecting previously unselected package iwd.
(Reading database ... 347571 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../archives/iwd_1.14-3_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking iwd (1.14-3) ...
Setting up iwd (1.14-3) ...
Processing triggers for dbus (1.12.20-2) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.9.4-2) ...
Scanning processes...                                                                               
Scanning processor microcode...                                                                     
Scanning linux images...                                                                            

Running kernel seems to be up-to-date.

The processor microcode seems to be up-to-date.

No services need to be restarted.

No containers need to be restarted.

No user sessions are running outdated binaries.
~# ls -l /var/cache/apt/archives/
total 556
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 561296 May  6  2021 iwd_1.14-3_amd64.deb
-rw-r----- 1 root root      0 Dec 12 21:09 lock
drwx------ 2 _apt root   4096 Jan 11 17:18 partial
~# 

That's why my routine upgrade command is:

# apt-get -o Acquire::http::Proxy="http://192.168.1.14:3142/" update && apt-get -d -o Acquire::http::Proxy="http://192.168.1.14:3142/" upgrade; apt-get upgrade; read -p 'Ctrl-C to avoid clean' _; apt-get clean

Cheers,
David.

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#243899

On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 11:11:21PM +0000, Brian wrote:
> > apt-get clean is a fairly useful command.
> 
> Indeed it it is. But what useful function does it perform on a default
> installation? Some users appear to think that downloaded and installed
> packages are preserved in /vat/cache/apt/archives until they are cleared
> out. They are not.

They ARE, if you use apt-get.

They are not, if you use apt.

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#243893

On 11.01.22 19:25, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> So I'm poking around with mc,  and happened across /var/cache/apt/archives which has a LOT of *.deb files in it, and which seems to include many versions of the same package,  some of them many years old,  going all the way back to 2013.  I guess I've been running debian a little longer than I'd thought...
> 
> Is it okay to just delete older versions of these files?  Or should I be doing something using one of the package management tools?  I've mostly used synaptic,  but am also aware of apt-get,  apt,  aptitude,  and am not real clear on their comparative capabilities.
> 
> I'm looking at over 7500 files amounting to over 9.5GB.
> 
> I also see /var/cache/dictionaries-common,  which appears to be tied to a spelling checker,  which I don't use here.  And /var/cache/samba,  which I also don't use -- there isn't a windoze machine around here at all.
> 
> What's the best way to get all of this excess stuff out of the system?
> 
> 
Just to give you some more inspiration about where else old stuff could 
have accumulated:
For the case that you would work with programming languages, then 
consider to check if they carry old ballast which you do not want to 
keep. For Python it could be cleaned off old ballast with the "clean" 
function of "conda", if you managed your python with conda, and for 
Julia there is some "]gc" garbage collector, just to give some examples. 
Other software is likely to also have tools like this. The point is, 
these programming language environments maintain their local stock of 
downloaded versioned packages similar like Debian is maintaining its 
packages, and you might also find there a significant amount of no more 
needed stuff.
I agree, cleaning tasks produce headaches, but if you are in need to 
free space, then you might need to go for it. You could always consider 
to have a nice backup in some offline storage before deleting stuff, so 
that you could copy it back into place if cleaned too much.
Another tip: the CLI tool "ncdu" can be helpful to localize where stuff 
accumulated.

Good luck!
Marco

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#243902

On 1/11/22 15:08, Marco Möller wrote:
[snip]
> Just to give you some more inspiration about where else old stuff could 
> have accumulated:
[snip]

Another useful tool to free up space and remove unneeded packages is 
deborphan.

After running deborphan, be sure to run it again a few times as it keeps 
finding more junk.

Regards,
Ralph

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#243903

On 1/11/22 10:25 AM, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> So I'm poking around with mc,  and happened across /var/cache/apt/archives which has a LOT of *.deb files in it, and which seems to include many versions of the same package,  some of them many years old,  going all the way back to 2013.  I guess I've been running debian a little longer than I'd thought...
> 
> Is it okay to just delete older versions of these files?  Or should I be doing something using one of the package management tools?  I've mostly used synaptic,  but am also aware of apt-get,  apt,  aptitude,  and am not real clear on their comparative capabilities.
> 
> I'm looking at over 7500 files amounting to over 9.5GB.
> 
> I also see /var/cache/dictionaries-common,  which appears to be tied to a spelling checker,  which I don't use here.  And /var/cache/samba,  which I also don't use -- there isn't a windoze machine around here at all.
> 
> What's the best way to get all of this excess stuff out of the system?


Move data to RAID, backup system configuration files, remove system 
drive, install blank SSD, do a fresh install, and configure by hand 
(using backups for reference).


David

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#243921

On Tuesday 11 January 2022 11:02:56 pm David Christensen wrote:
> On 1/11/22 10:25 AM, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> > So I'm poking around with mc,  and happened across /var/cache/apt/archives which has a LOT of *.deb files in it, and which seems to include many versions of the same package,  some of them many years old,  going all the way back to 2013.  I guess I've been running debian a little longer than I'd thought...
> > 
> > Is it okay to just delete older versions of these files?  Or should I be doing something using one of the package management tools?  I've mostly used synaptic,  but am also aware of apt-get,  apt,  aptitude,  and am not real clear on their comparative capabilities.
> > 
> > I'm looking at over 7500 files amounting to over 9.5GB.
> > 
> > I also see /var/cache/dictionaries-common,  which appears to be tied to a spelling checker,  which I don't use here.  And /var/cache/samba,  which I also don't use -- there isn't a windoze machine around here at all.
> > 
> > What's the best way to get all of this excess stuff out of the system?
> 
> 
> Move data to RAID, backup system configuration files, remove system 
> drive, install blank SSD, do a fresh install, and configure by hand 
> (using backups for reference).

Yeah,  I could do that if I had those resources,  but I don't.  In the meantime I'm finding aptitude to be a useful tool for the job...

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

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