Re: /var/cache/PackageKit/metadata gets very big
On Fri, 18 Mar 2016 17:14:29 -0400 (EDT)
"D. Hugh Redelmeier" <hugh(a)mimosa.com> wrote:
Isn't dnf the user interface to PackageKit?
I always disable PackageKit, so I'm probably not the best person to
answer this. But, my understanding is that PackageKit operates
independently of dnf. That when PackageKit updates the system, it
doesn't invoke dnf, but interacts with rpm directly. I might be wrong.
pkmon is a console debug tool kit for PackageKit, pkcon is just cli
interface without any debug capability.
What kind of problems?
Perhaps they are used to reduce the size of download (so only a
difference needs to be transferred).
No, that's drpm. If you have a flaky connection, and your update
crashes, if this isn't turned on, all the rpms go away, and your
download starts over from the beginning.
And it allows someone to do what you were thinking of doing, updating a
single box, and then re-using all those RPMs for othep systems.
Especially worthwhile on slow connections, or where people get charged
for usage.
Here's how I did it. Not quite a script yet.
cd /var/cache/PackageKit/metadata/updates/packages
# create a list of installed RPM files
rpm -qa | sed -e 's/$/.rpm/' | sort >~/0installed
# create a list of hoarded files
ls >~/0saved
# create a list of files that are obsoleted
diff ~/0saved ~/0installed | sed -n -e 's/^< //p' >~/0obsolete
# Exercise for the reader: delete files list in ~/0obsolete
# This is the first step that requires root.
# Note: ~/ means something different for each user.
I use a python program I wrote, that uses regexes to compare the
filenames, and deletes the earlier version. It's a hack, but it
doesn't have to be perfect. If it is +/- 5%, no big deal. And it
seems to be a lot better than that, maybe .5% or less.
Before I did this, "dnf update" failed due to lack of
space. After,
it just worked. So I guess PackageKit isn't upset by files just
disappearing from this directory.
From this, it seems that PackageKit and dnf are sharing an rpm package
directory.