Am Tue, Sep 15, 2026 at 06:17:33AM +0200, schrieb Jochen Sprickerhof: > me this includes cleaning up `archives/`, even though it sounds unlikely > that package builds would use it but it reduces any non reproducible diff in > the chroot.
As I tried to explain already, in a default configuration archives/ will be empty with or without `distclean` being called as apt will have removed the *.deb files after it installed them, so I fail to see which diff is reduced here. Can you provide an example? This removal can be disabled with $apt_keep_downloaded_packages, a clear indication that they shouldn't be removed, but by calling distclean afterwards the archives/ directory is cleared completely anyhow making the option alone useless. Worse, if you have a setup like the config option suggested with mounting archives/ from your host, this directory is now completely cleared ~ which seems like the complete opposite of what a user who had this setup until now wanted (But as said, I am not sure how this mounting would work in unshare given the wrong permissions, but in the other "older" modes that is surely a thing). > You could simply add > > $clean_apt_cache = 0; > > to your sbuild.conf to disable the feature. I could of course, but that exposes me again to the lists/ problem you wanted to fix with the distclean call. For the same reason I don't want it automatically disabled. My opinion remains that the archives/ clearing part should be disabled by default as it does nothing in the default config and setups, but breaks documented setups (= mounting archives/ from host) and has (currently undocumented) implications for an existing config option. It also ensures that at least lists/ is cleared for both of us. I will have to live with archives/ containing *.deb files (maybe as explained last mail) in my setup, but "it sounds [indeed] unlikely that package builds would use it", so I hope I can manage that risk. Best regards David Kalnischkies
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