If Synaptic becomes slow in loading

[coffeetime]

Open Konsole, go su, than

Code:

apt-get clean
apt-get autoclean
rpm --rebuilddb

[Rudge]

coffeetime, what exactly does this do?  It kind of looks like something that one could do on a regular basis as a maintenance idem. 

[coffeetime]

coffeetime, what exactly does this do?

It cleans your garbage.

It kind of looks like something that one could do on a regular basis as a maintenance idem. 

I recommend doing it after some time [especially after the big updates]. And you should notice the difference.

[AndrzejL]

coffeetime, what exactly does this do?  It kind of looks like something that one could do on a regular basis as a maintenance idem.  

[sarcasm]Yeah... Especially if You like to keep Your files in cache so You don't have to redownload them each time You upgrade a system or install a app..[/sarcasm]

What does it do?

Its removing every single rpm from  /var/cache/apt/archives/. Its changing the option in the synaptic to delete the files no longer available in the repo.

/var/cache/apt/archives/ is the place that stores all Your rpm files that You have downloaded. I have over 10 gigs of rpms on my hdd and I don't complain about synaptic speed especially that my download limit is small and my download speed is even smaller...

Why it is not always a great idea to delete downloaded rpms?

Old rpms can be very handy when upgrade breaks stuff and You need to downgrade. I know that Tex is awesome and his packages almost never contain any broken software but sometimes exceptions happen. Sometimes new version can be just incompatible with Your hardware or developer / programmer made a serious mistake... it may work fine on Tex's test machines but it may break Your application / service. Downgrade is one of the fix options then.

Downloaded rpms can be transferred on a pendrive or cd / dvd to another computer's /var/cache/apt/archives/ folder. Thanks to this - You only have to download upgrades once.

If I would not know what those commands do and follow Coffeetime's advice I would be rather very unhappy... My local repo / cache would be gone with the wind. How do I know? I actually did that once in I think late 2008 (no it was not Coffetime who advised it to me then. I read that in one of the posts as a solution for one of the problems I had...). I was furious as it didn't solved the problem and it added a next one... I remember Joble was the person who was listening to my rant on IRC PM... Good old Joble ! Always can count on this guy. I have lost about 3.5 gigs of rpms then. Its not much but then I had 1 gb monthly download quota... and 40 KBps max download speed... Can You feel the pain of re-downloading it? Now its bit better but 10 gigs is still a massive download for me plus some rpms are long time gone from repositories / replaced with upgraded versions so loosing them would be un-replaceble.

I am _not saying_ its a bad advice. It is a good advice yes - but not for all users and definitely _should be explained better_.

If You dont care about download quota / speed. If You want to have synaptic running bit faster - use this solution. BTW... Synaptic removes files from cache after installation by default anyway...

If You have explicitly marked "Keep all the downloaded files in cache" in Synaptic options and every single megabyte downloaded feels like a kick in Your backside... Don't use this solution.

If You have backed up all the files from /var/cache/apt/archives/ folder and You are sure You won't need them anytime soon follow Coffeetime's advice. Its all good.

Regards.

Andy

[Rudge]

Thanks! You both have been helpful. I have not done it and I will have to think about the pros and cons a bit. My synaptic is not slow so it's not an issue. 

[coffeetime]

>Andy,

thanks for your input. And yes, it should be explained better

As always, man is our friend:

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/

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 of time 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.

Edit:

• apt-get = APT package handling utility - command-line interface
• apt-get is the command-line tool for handling packages, and may be considered the user's "back-end" to other tools using the APT library.  Several "front-end" interfaces exist, such as synaptic and aptitude.
  
• rebuilddb - rebuilds database

Code:

man apt-get

Code:

apt-get -h

[John Bee]

Downloaded rpms can be transferred on a pendrive or cd / dvd to another computer's /var/cache/apt/archives/ folder. Thanks to this - You only have to download upgrades once.

If You dont care about download quota / speed. If You want to have synaptic running bit faster - use this solution. BTW... Synaptic removes files from cache after installation by default anyway...

Regards.

Andy

Absolutely right, Andy. I even go further and burn ALL downloaded rpms from the /var/cache/apt/archives/ folder
to DVD's. (I have every rpm I ever downloaded/updated since 2007 when I first started with PCLos  )

Why do I do this, simple, I am on dial-up. At 4.5KB/s, my large updates takes hours, not minutes/seconds like you guys
on high-speed. In the case of KDE 4.5 update recently, it took me 4 days to update.