[ubuntu-za] (THANKS) ARE .DEB FILES NECESSARY?

[CM Schoonbee]

James Cuénod wrote:
>> Possibly a 'Master" backup disk kept in a safe place & added to from  
>> time to
>> time might be the answer?
>>
>>     
>
> Bearing in mind, of course, that there are regular updates to almost everything so what I do is just leave the cache and whenever I feel the need to format (an old M$ habit) I back it up and restore it. That way what needs to be downloaded when I update is downloaded but what I've got cached that can be used is not. Of course my file storage habits mean that every now and then I completely lose that stuff and this allows me to not keep old outdated packages... It all works wonderfully. :D
>
> Happy new year all.
>
>
>   
I also find it useful to keep the downloaded update deb packages.  But 
especially for a LTS release like 8.04, these can pile up.  When you 
download an update for a particular package, you no longer need any 
previous updates that were downloaded for that package.   Harddrive 
space is no problem but I often copy the debs on to a USB stick to 
update other computers.  So when the cache starts becoming too unwieldy 
for my USB stick I just clean out the old (no longer needed) packages 
using the command:
sudo apt-get autoclean

Do NOT use the different command
sudo apt-get clean
unless you want to clean out ALL the debs in your cache.