joseluisq/pacman_cache.md

## pacman_cache.md

      
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    How to save space on disk removing ArchLinux Pacman packages cache

1. Check out how many space is taken by Pacman packages cache

ls /var/cache/pacman/pkg/ | wc -l
# 13886
du -sh /var/cache/pacman/pkg/
# 61G	/var/cache/pacman/pkg/
2. Deletes all cached versions of installed and uninstalled packages, except for the most recent 3

paccache -r
# ==> Privilege escalation required
# [sudo] password for joseluisq:
# ==> finished: 8795 packages removed (disk space saved: 46.62 GiB)
ls /var/cache/pacman/pkg/ | wc -l
# 5092
3. Discard unused packages weekly

sudo systemctl start paccache.timer
sudo systemctl enable paccache.timer
sudo systemctl status paccache.timer
# ● paccache.timer - Discard unused packages weekly
#     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/paccache.timer; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
#     Active: active (waiting) since Thu 2020-09-24 09:50:44 CEST; 3s ago
#    Trigger: Mon 2020-09-28 00:00:00 CEST; 3 days left
#   Triggers: ● paccache.service
#
# set 24 09:50:44 localhost systemd[1]: Started Discard unused packages weekly.
4. Remove all cached versions but keeping the N ones (Optional)

paccache -rk 1
Replace 1 with the number of versions that you want to preserve.
More details on ArchLinux Pacman - Cleaning the package cache