Just out of curiosity, why updating with tlmgr, TL2010 saves the 'backups'? what are 'backups'? $ tlmgr update -list [...] tlmgr: saving backups to /usr/local/texlive/tlpkg/backups [...] I do not remember a similar behavior with TL2008 nor with TL2009 or with TL2010 up to few weeks ago... Ciao, Angelo.