Hi-

I installed Linux Mint 14 about a year ago, and lately it started to run very slowly at times, and freeze at times. I did a new data backup with the backup tool, and did a fresh install, which almost worked- except Libre Office didn't work. I repeated the process, manually copying only unhidden files from my personal subdirectories (without the "." prefix), and it worked fine. During the first restore process, I noticed that there were many thousands of cache files hidden a few layers deep in subdirectories. I suspect that these files not only consumed lots of media and time in backups, but may have contributed to my system slowing and freezing before the new install.

I am considering waiting a month, making a list of all my cache subdirectories and writing a shell script to wipe their contents every few months. Other than temporarily slowing my machine a little, and consuming some time and effort to map the files and write the script, is there any reason NOT to do this? i. e., do cache files contribute anything other than temporarily speeding up my machine?

Caching supposes the use of some sort of algorithm to make it efficient. While caching may take up disk space it's not always the same as the original file (image thumbnails or .desktop files for recently accessed items are small) and not necessarily detrimental to what you're doing. If you experience the machine slowing down or freezing then the first thing to do is check your ~/.xsession-error*, dmesg and /var/log log files for clues.

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