Bug#704424: release-notes: sufficient-space hints give confusing advice
Package: release-notes
Version: r9661
Tags: wheezy patch
Justin B Rye wrote:
> I don't see anything about "apt-get autoremove" in the copy I've just
> checked out of SVN... nothing about that or aptitude's older support
> for the same feature.
Yeah, that was me guessing about the intent. There's no need to
talk about aptitude's autoremove support here because aptitude
already removes unnecessary packages as appropriate on the fly.
>> * Run aptitude and look for the "Obsolete and Locally
>> Created Packages" category, which will contain packages
>> from previous releases that you never bothered to remove.
>
> These may be "obsolete", but unless they're *also* redundant automatic
> installs (covered in the previous points), they don't seem likely
> candidates for freeing up space before a dist-upgrade. They're things
> that I've been deliberately keeping around even though they weren't in
> Debian stable. Yes, it's possible that I'll need to find some
> replacement for them, but
> (a) that's not especially likely to free up any space (quite the
> opposite, in my experience), and
> (b) this is more or less exactly the wrong time to do it, since they
> might be in wheezy! The time to check for "Obsolete and Locally
> Created Packages" is immediately *after* a dist-upgrade.
That makes sense. Thanks for explaining.
This text comes from r4245 (2007-03-27). I think it's meant to be a
short cut for finding old libraries, but I agree with you that the other
advice is more likely to be fruitful. So let's just drop it, as you
suggested.
How about this patch?
Index: upgrading.dbk
===================================================================
--- upgrading.dbk (révision 9661)
+++ upgrading.dbk (copie de travail)
@@ -714,18 +714,32 @@
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
-Remove forgotten packages. If you have
-<systemitem role="package">popularity-contest</systemitem> installed, you can use
-<command>popcon-largest-unused</command> to list the packages you do not use
-that occupy the most space. You can also use
-<command>deborphan</command> or <command>debfoster</command> to find obsolete
-packages (see <xref linkend="obsolete"/> ). Alternatively you can start
-<command>aptitude</command> in <quote>visual mode</quote> and find obsolete packages under
-<quote>Obsolete and Locally Created Packages</quote>.
+Remove unneeded packages.
+<itemizedlist>
+<listitem>
+<para>
+If you have <systemitem role="package">popularity-contest</systemitem>
+installed, you can use <command>popcon-largest-unused</command> to
+list the packages you do not use that occupy the most space.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
+Run <command>apt-get autoremove</command>, which removes automatically
+installed packages that are no longer used (see <xref
+linkend="obsolete"/>).
+</para>
+</listitem>
+<listitem>
+<para>
+You can also use <command>deborphan</command> or <command>debfoster</command> to
+search more aggressively for unneeded packages (see <xref linkend="obsolete"/>).
+</para>
+</listitem>
+</para>
+</listitem>
+<listitem>
+<para>
Remove packages that take up too much space and are not currently
needed (you
can always reinstall them after the upgrade). You can list the packages that
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