Why is /var so big?

[Craig White]

On Sun, 2005-03-20 at 14:36 -0500, Rob Rosenthal wrote:
> > Execute as root: mkdir /var/cache/yum
> > Btw. you broke it yourself by deleting all the content below /var/cache/
> > (previous thread).
> >
> > Alexander
> 
> Alexander,
> 
> Oh, I know.  I absolutely did it myself in my haste to free up space.  I tried (as root) the "mkdir /var/cache/yum" and got the following error message: "mkdir: cannot create directory `/var/cache/yum': No such file or directory"  I'm guessing it may be because I'm running FC2 and not FC3, which has a new and different yum?  Do you think I should just reinstall yum?
> 
> BTW, I really do appreciate your help...
----
did you delete /var/cache itself?

ls -l /var/cache

if not found

mkdir /var/cache
mkdir /var/cache/yum

might as well make

/var/cache/alchemist

and if you use samba (no doubt you would have noticed the effects of the
delete if you do much at all with samba)

/var/cache/samba

Craig