I have a /.cache with two sub directories

...and things get a little weirder.  I have those mesa subdirectories in /root/.cache/  and ~/.cache/  but not in /.cache.  I've never seen anything in /.cache.  It seems like there's probably not just one cause here.

drwx------  2 root root 4096 Jun 17 01:15 mesa_shader_cache
drwx------ 52 root root 4096 Jun 17 01:15 mesa_shader_cache_db

and then some directory tree down to pairs of files. All of that created and modified at that one time. Presumably mine belongs to some "mesa" package.

But 'network-manager' and 'avahi-daemon' was both near enough in the timeline.
I've disabled both (no need for them, as it is a desktop-machine) with update-rc.d

The network-manager is needed by KDE if you use it to show in its network widget, the avahi-daemon advertises network services to other devices on the network you may need both if those things stop working now.

Edit: In KDE you will still get network connection if another method of obtaining the IP is used but the widget will display no connections at all.

1. /.config
It comes from pulseaudio. everybody should decide by himself, if one purges it, or not.
As explained in the link it has a nonexisting HOME:

pulse:x:104:111:PulseAudio daemon,,,:/run/pulse:/bin/false

I've changed this to a real exising dummy-directory:

pulse:x:104:111:PulseAudio daemon,,,:/home/.pulse:/bin/false

Strange enough, that this dummy stays empty as long as I can see!?

2. /.cache
Pulseaudio seems to have no effect here?
The right idea cames, by inspecting the timestamp via stat - there was no exact match in the SYSLOG ...
But 'network-manager' and 'avahi-daemon' was both near enough in the timeline.
I've disabled both (no need for them, as it is a desktop-machine) with update-rc.d

Both directories are gone now, and it has also survived several reboots.

Thanks again!

See this thread: https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=5596
There is a lot of information about /.config and /.cache there.

In my case, I solved it with this ...

# apt purge pulseaudio && apt autoclean && apt autoremove

... and then this: https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=3904

The end result being this:

$ cat /etc/apt/preferences.d/avoid_pulseaudio
Package: pulseaudio:*
Pin: version *
Pin-Priority: -1
$ 

In your case, a bit more digging may be necessary.
Or not.

Please let us know how you fared.

Best,

A.

A daedalus-installation on AMD64 ...
First: I didn't mean root's HOME-directory, I mean the root of the whole filesystem /
There are always two hidden dirs, named /.config and /.cache
Ok, the first may come from pulseaudio, it re-appears from time to time, and it should be possible, to avoid this in an easy way.
But what's about the second, named /.cache, which thing recreates this on every reboot? How to avoid this?

Thank you, FM_81