How long do backup files(files ending with ~
) created in Ubuntu by text editors live?
Do they persist until they are deleted manually, or are they automatically deleted by the operating system at some point in time?
These files live till they're deleted manually. There is no automatic deletion of *~
files. That would be dangerous, since just because some apps create backup files using that suffix doesn't mean that every file whose name ends with ~
is a backup file that can be safely deleted.