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-<chapter xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
- xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
- xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
- version="5.0"
- xml:id='sec-garbage-collection'>
-
-<title>Garbage Collection</title>
-
-<para><command>nix-env</command> operations such as upgrades
-(<option>-u</option>) and uninstall (<option>-e</option>) never
-actually delete packages from the system. All they do (as shown
-above) is to create a new user environment that no longer contains
-symlinks to the “deleted” packages.</para>
-
-<para>Of course, since disk space is not infinite, unused packages
-should be removed at some point. You can do this by running the Nix
-garbage collector. It will remove from the Nix store any package
-not used (directly or indirectly) by any generation of any
-profile.</para>
-
-<para>Note however that as long as old generations reference a
-package, it will not be deleted. After all, we wouldn’t be able to
-do a rollback otherwise. So in order for garbage collection to be
-effective, you should also delete (some) old generations. Of course,
-this should only be done if you are certain that you will not need to
-roll back.</para>
-
-<para>To delete all old (non-current) generations of your current
-profile:
-
-<screen>
-$ nix-env --delete-generations old</screen>
-
-Instead of <literal>old</literal> you can also specify a list of
-generations, e.g.,
-
-<screen>
-$ nix-env --delete-generations 10 11 14</screen>
-
-To delete all generations older than a specified number of days
-(except the current generation), use the <literal>d</literal>
-suffix. For example,
-
-<screen>
-$ nix-env --delete-generations 14d</screen>
-
-deletes all generations older than two weeks.</para>
-
-<para>After removing appropriate old generations you can run the
-garbage collector as follows:
-
-<screen>
-$ nix-store --gc</screen>
-
-The behaviour of the gargage collector is affected by the
-<literal>keep-derivations</literal> (default: true) and <literal>keep-outputs</literal>
-(default: false) options in the Nix configuration file. The defaults will ensure
-that all derivations that are build-time dependencies of garbage collector roots
-will be kept and that all output paths that are runtime dependencies
-will be kept as well. All other derivations or paths will be collected.
-(This is usually what you want, but while you are developing
-it may make sense to keep outputs to ensure that rebuild times are quick.)
-
-If you are feeling uncertain, you can also first view what files would
-be deleted:
-
-<screen>
-$ nix-store --gc --print-dead</screen>
-
-Likewise, the option <option>--print-live</option> will show the paths
-that <emphasis>won’t</emphasis> be deleted.</para>
-
-<para>There is also a convenient little utility
-<command>nix-collect-garbage</command>, which when invoked with the
-<option>-d</option> (<option>--delete-old</option>) switch deletes all
-old generations of all profiles in
-<filename>/nix/var/nix/profiles</filename>. So
-
-<screen>
-$ nix-collect-garbage -d</screen>
-
-is a quick and easy way to clean up your system.</para>
-
-<xi:include href="garbage-collector-roots.xml" />
-
-</chapter>