From 2ef8f0608caa27d1a92d827f54b54155c89092a8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Sean Seefried Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2018 19:23:24 +1000 Subject: Add to glossary and clarify garbage collection While trying to understand garbage collection it was not immediately clear that only the runtime dependency closure of output paths would be kept (instead of the build-time dependency closure). This commit attempts to clarify this by expanding some of the glossary definitions and extending the Garbage Collection section. --- doc/manual/packages/garbage-collection.xml | 8 ++++++++ 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+) (limited to 'doc/manual/packages') diff --git a/doc/manual/packages/garbage-collection.xml b/doc/manual/packages/garbage-collection.xml index 03b8e4c976c1..a1b0ef22a11e 100644 --- a/doc/manual/packages/garbage-collection.xml +++ b/doc/manual/packages/garbage-collection.xml @@ -52,6 +52,14 @@ garbage collector as follows: $ nix-store --gc +The behaviour of the gargage collector is affected by the keep- +derivations (default: true) and keep-outputs +(default: false) options in the Nix configuration file. The defaults will ensure +that all derivations that are not build-time dependencies of garbage collector roots +will be collected but that all output paths that are not runtime dependencies +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: -- cgit 1.4.1