mlocate databases?

[Roberto Ragusa]

William Murray wrote:
>  Mlocate ate my laptop in April!
> 
> ls -ltr /var/lib/mlocate
> total 3022120
> -rw------- 1 root root    844066816 Apr 14 17:46 mlocate.db.rBAm9f
> -rw------- 1 root root    142090240 Apr 15 17:11 mlocate.db.5WFHLF
> -rw------- 1 root root    367599616 Apr 17 01:34 mlocate.db.hwNRnj
> -rw------- 1 root root    142086144 Apr 17 06:17 mlocate.db.8Dsp3V
> -rw------- 1 root root    368197632 Apr 20 11:07 mlocate.db.RuRzJP
> -rw------- 1 root root    368197632 Apr 21 14:10 mlocate.db.JEe9MT
> -rw------- 1 root root    844668928 Apr 23 18:12 mlocate.db.aJxliy
> -rw-r----- 1 root slocate  14646298 Jun 21 10:09 mlocate.db
> 
>   Since these all date from a week in April I assume I can delete
> all the old db files. Is that true? It will save 2.9Gb!!

I guess you can delete the files; and even if the db becomes corrupted,
you can delete everything and have it rebuilt from scratch next time
updatedb runs.

Or you could just move the files in another dir, verify if mlocate
works and put them back in place if necessary.

I would personally take the easy path: delete them; they're very likely
temp files which weren't deleted for some reasons.

Best regards.
-- 
   Roberto Ragusa    mail at robertoragusa.it