If like me you use the find command rather than locate, you will not see any benefit from the annoying process, that runs at the most inconvenient times, called mlocate.update. This process is building an index of the files on your server or PC. If you do not use the locate command turn it off, it’s of no use to you.
mlocate.update runs as a cron job and can therefore be disabled simply by removing the execute permission on the file /etc/cron.daily/mlocate
sudo chmod -x /etc/cron.daily/mlocate
You can re-enable it with
sudo chmod +x /etc/cron.daily/mlocate
The config file for this process is /etc/updatedb.conf and I doubt there is any thing in there you will want to change.
To remove it completely from your machine use and save 300K of disk space 🙂
sudo apt-get purge mlocate
Funny how different people use their systems 😉
For I install locate/mlocate in every distro I use!
[Imported from previous blog]
As you turn mlocate on it makes me wonder why you were reading my page 🙂
Nice article that gets to the bottom of why mlocate really should be retired at this point
How much CO2 is being put into the atmosphere because this is still standard in many distros?