Listmates, I like to keep the current set of updated packages in /var/cache/pacman/pkg but not have all of the older duplicates in there as well. However, I don't want to delete the old packages either, in case I need to downgrade a package. I simply want to move the older packages to a backup location on a different partition so I'm not filling up / with several extra gigabytes of older packages. To do this I adapted a script that I used to clean duplicates from my local rpm repository and changed the script to deal with package-name-v.e.r-arch.pkg.tar.gz instead of rpm-name-v.e.r-s.u.b-arch.rpm. (Thankfully arch just uses the pkg directory instead of a nested spiderweb under /var/cache/zypp/packages/.....) The script for finding and moving older duplicate packages is named fduppkg and is fairly self-explanitory. Running without arguments gives the options: 23:33 supersff:~/scripts/file> fduppkg Usage: <search dir> [ -d -l logfile -s -v ] Searches <search dir> for duplicate pkgs and moves duplicate files to [dup_dir] or <search dir>/duplicates by default. -d | --dupdir Used to specify directory to hold duplicate rpms -l | --logfile Specify the log file name (default ./duplicates.log) -s | --silent Don't output anything to stdout, just log results -v | --verbose Output information showing which files are kept and not moved You should note that the actual check for older/newer uses the file modification date to make the decision rather than parsing the version number digit-by-digit. So if you have done something nutty like moving all the packages out of /var/cache and then copying them back so all the file modification times are the same, this script won't work. (I could see it happening) If you have a need for something like this, you can grab the script at: http://www.3111skyline.com/download/Archlinux/scripts/fduppkg Since the script if fairly generic for packages, if you have a number of directories you want to operate on, you can just call the script from another script that sets the command line inputs. Example: http://www.3111skyline.com/download/Archlinux/scripts/fdup-archpkg I generally just create a link to the script in /usr/local/bin so it is in the search path. Also, if you just want to tear it apart for the bash scripting learning, I have commented it so it is somewhat readable. Enjoy. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com