Re: Finding abandoned packages

[Jaume Guasch <jaume.guasch@psi.ch>]

Harry Brueckner <hb@o-d.de> writes:

> Hi there,
> 
> is there a way to find packages which have no dependencies pointing to them?
> 

debfoster, deborphan, aptitude (can mark automatically installed
packages, which will be removed once no other package depends on them)

> I would like to clean up my system and if I'd have a list of packages
> where no dependencies point to, I could just walk through the list and
> remove all packages I don't want anymore.
> 
> For example, when I install 'abcde' it requires 'libcdparanoia' but if I
> remove 'abcde' sometimes later, 'libcdparanoia' gets abandoned and is
> not used anymore.
> What I want is to find and remove packages like 'libcdparanoia' in this
> case. :-)
> 
> Any ideas how to do this?

My way (there are multiple), using debfoster:

after apt-get install abcde run: debfoster
it will ask: abcde is keeping libcdparanoia installed, keep abcde?
answer yes.

some time later you decide to remove abcde:
$ apt-get remove --purge abcde
$ debfoster
  libcdparanoia: keep?

answer No, and libcdparanoia will be removed (purged). 

You should run debfoster after each apt-get (install, upgrade, remove
...) to keep track of orphaned packages.

Hope this helps,

Jaume
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