Re: How important is /gnu/store/.links?

[Ludovic Courtès]

<address@hidden> skribis:

> What is the purpose of /gnu/store/.links and is it important? I checked
> the docs on the website and couldn't find any reference to this
> directory anywhere, so I'm asking here.

This directory serves as a database for deduplication, which is the
process of using hard links to make sure each individual file in
/gnu/store is stored only once in the file system.

If you “rm -rf” this directory, things will keep working, but that will
hamper deduplication going forward.  You can force a store-wide
deduplication pass, though, by running “guix gc --optimize”.

HTH!

Ludo’.