I am building an image for an embedded Linux based on Debian. I did use apt-get update before on the device that I want to use as a base for that image, so the lists under /var/lib/apt/lists are quite large (almost 100 MB in size).I want to keep apt-get functionality (so I don't want to remove apt repositories) but I want to free the space used up in these lists (the lists almost double the size of the image).Does anyone know how to do that? Can I just delete the files under /var/lib/apt/lists?
clear apt-get list
debian;apt;package management
You can just use:rm /var/lib/apt/lists/*This will remove the package lists. No repositories will be deleted, they are configured in the config file in /etc/apt/sources.list. All that can happen is that tools like apt-cache cannot get package information unless you updated the package lists. Also apt-get install will fail with E: Unable to locate package <package>, because no information is available about the package.Then just run:apt-get updateto rewrite those lists and the command will work again.Anyway, it's recommended to run apt-get update before installing anything.