Freeing up some space from your apt cache

Filed in archive Utilities on August 16, 2008

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Roman Sigaev

In a constrained space provided by the current netbooks, such as the Asus Eee PC, MSI Wind, etc., space is a premium. However, it is also important that you keep the OS updated with the latest patches. On the desktop, whilst having more HDD space, it is also a good idea to be freeing up unused space for your data. A new install of Ubuntu 8.04 requires you to download tons of updates to make it to 8.04.1, at least. Whilst housekeeping is pretty simple with Linux, an often missed cache is the one created by "apt-get". A simple "sudo apt-get clean" will regain you that lost space.

In my Ubuntu install, on a virtual machine, here's what I have before I deleted the cache.

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After running the command, here's what I regained.

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Imagine how much space that was. :)