safe to delete installed .tgz packages?
 

Okay, so i read somewhere (I think an article by AlienBob) that you needed to make sure .tgz packages where located in a safe place as opposed to the home directory so as to prevent accidental deletion.

I have a number of .tgz packages that I have already installed and moved to the /bin/ directory for safe keeping, but its not very orderly, ya' know?

Is it safe to delete/rm these .tgz files? Im assuming that the installpkg command extracts the creamy nougat inside and puts it somewhere useful.

Also, even if it is safe to delete, what is best practice in this case? keep them forever in some isolated directory?

I would make a directory in my home directory and store them there. I would not delete them, just in case I needed to reinstall them at some future date.

"Is it safe to delete/rm these .tgz files?". Direct answer is yes. Once a packages is installed the package is no longer needed.

As for keeping packages? It really a user preference. I keep them in "/home/non-slack/installed/" and "/home/non-slack/packages/". Comes in handy if I need to reinstall a package, especially one that takes a long time to build. Reinstalling is very rare occurrence for me. Normally that package just sits there until it's replaced by an updated one.

If I decide to wipe and do a fresh install (rare), then it only a mater of restoring "/home/non-slack", changing to the installed directory and running "installpkg *.t?z" to install my non-Slackware packages.

If my system gets really hosed, that is what backups and images are for.

It really depends on just what the "tar balls" are .
I build a lot of source and only delete the old source files after i install a NEW version

i set up a DATA partition with a /src folder
/opt/DATA/src
( where DATA is the DATA hard drive and /opt is the mount point )
new version of say "Gimp " comes out i run "make uninstall" in the old folder and then build the NEW version
If the new version runs fine i then remove the old folder .

Regards deleting them, when you would no longer re-install from them then there's no point in keeping them (examples: change of OS or you would install another software or a later version).

Regards keeping them securely, they are normally replaceable in the same way you got them so having them is only a convenience. You can balance the cost of keeping them securely (HDD and backup space usage, administration) against the benefits of having them (time saved if you need to re-install) taking into account the probability of loosing them and re-installing. It could be called "probabilistic cost/benefit analysis" :)

FWIW I keep them in dedicated directories (/home/c/d/Repository/Slackware <version or noarch> packages/) and those directories are routinely backed up with no special effort. When the file system is short of space I delete obsolete files in those directories.

Thanks!
 

Cool, lots of replies! Glad to hear that deleted .tgz files wont bring down the system in the future. Good advice to keep the files in a separate folder for rapid redeploy in case of reformat. Thanks again.