[Pan-users] Re: clearing the cache

[Duncan]

"Travis" <address@hidden>
posted address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Mon,
09 Oct 2006 09:16:49 -0700:

> No worries about what is on my computer.
>   ;-)
> 
> Is a larger cache advantageous?

It depends on how you use pan.  The way I use it for binary groups,
definitely, altho I'm fine with a 10 MB cache for my text group instance,
and many even highly active binary users find pan's defaults just fine,
because they work differently than I do.  There are also heavy text users
that prefer to keep an archive of the messages in the groups they
participate in, going back years in some cases.  These text group archive
users will also want a far larger cache -- and will be regularly backing
it up as one would back up any data considered valuable, as well.

For binary group users that save attachments directly on download, pan's
10 MB cache is fine, as it'll keep all the parts necessary to rebuild and
save the binary file actively being downloaded until it can save it or
encounters a fetch error.

I work rather differently, preferring to download multiple gigs of data to
cache while online, then go offline to actually sort thru it and decide
what I want to save and what I don't value enough to save before deleting
it.  I prefer this for several reasons, including the fact that the
downloads take time, so setting them up to download to cache then doing
something else instead of impatiently waiting for them to save is nice on
that end, and then when I come back, everything's local, so I get
immediate response without having to wait for the download.  Additionally,
I like having all the metadata from the posts, who posted it, when, what
their subject line and any comments were, and what others said about the
posts if anything, available to be used when I decide on where I'm going
to put the files.  Users that save immediately, to some temp dir and then
go back and decide what to do with the files separate from pan, don't have
all that extra metadata available to them when they do so.

If you do primarily still image (jpeg) groups, 4 gig cache should be a
reasonable size for doing it my way.  If you do a lot of multimedia, short
mpegs and the like, try about a 10 gig cache.  If you do a lot of longer
format ISOs, full size CDs and DVDs, or are a heavy trader in say TV
programs or the like, something more on the order of 20 gig or even more
mey be needed to do it my way.  However, traders in such large files are
far more likely to know what they want up front and thus be able to save
directly, instead of using my download-to-cache and process-from-there
method.

FWIW, mixed jpeg to short format (half-hour-ish) multi-media, plus mp3s,
is my mix, and I have my binary pan instance caching to a dedicated 12 gig
partition used for nothing else.

("pan instance" refers to the new-pan ability to have entirely separate pan
configurations, by making use of the $PAN_HOME environmental variable to
point pan at the appropriate one.  I have in my home directory a general
pan subdir, with subdirs in turn for each of my instances.  Here, I have
text, test, and binary.  Others may separate their instances otherwise,
for instance, the music/mp3 groups might be one instance, the pr0n jpeg
groups another, the pr0n multmedia groups a third, the TV program trading
groups a fourth, their general text groups a fifth, their gmane mailing
lists (like this one) as newsgroups a sixth, their Linux or MSWormOS or
whatever tech groups a seventh...  You get the idea.)

> How do I increase the size of my cache if needed?

Again, I don't know where the default config/cache location is on
MSWormOS, but presume you can find a pan2 or the like directory located
somewhere, with a bunch of files including preferences.xml, and a
bin-cache or similarly named subdir.  That'd be what you are looking for. 
The cache setting is in the preferences.xml file.  With pan closed, open
the file in your favorite text editor (example notepad on MSWormOS) and do
a search for "cache-size-megs" (w/o the quotes).  Change the number as
desired.  As I said, my binary instance cache is on its own dedicated
partition of 12 gigs, so I have that instance set to 12500 megs, slightly
larger than the partition.  If it ever gets full, pan will quit
downloading and protest, and I'll know I have to process what's there and
empty the cache before I continue.  However, 12 gigs is multiple download
sessions for me, and I normally process what's there and delete the cache
well before I hit 12 gigs (6-8 gigs is the usual, I think I hit 10 gig
once), so it's not a problem.  My other two instances are set to five gigs
a piece, altho the entire text instance easily fits with room to grow in
100 MB at this point (the cache is ~24 MB, the entire config is ~31 MB).

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman