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Debian's /tmpest in a teapot
Debian had a major discussion about mounting /tmp as a RAM-based tmpfs in 2012 but inertia won out in the end. Debian systems have continued to store temporary files on disk by default. Until now. A mere 12 years later, the project will be switching to a RAM-based /tmp in the Debian 13 ("Trixie") release. Additionally, starting with Trixie, the default will be to periodically clean up temporary files automatically in /tmp and /var/tmp. Naturally, it involved a lengthy discussion first.
Debian Developer and systemd contributor Luca Boccassi recently decided it was time to revisit the topic of/tmp as a tmpfs, and start deleting temporary files in/tmp and/var/tmp. In reviving the topic, Boccassi declared that it was time to bring Debian's defaults in line with upstream and other Linux distributions by making/tmp a tmpfs, and cleaning up/tmp and/var/tmp on a timer. That sounded like the original rationale, Allbery said, but he added that moving/tmp to tmpfs should make applications run faster, and reaping files under/var/tmp could help to avoid filling up a partition.
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