Re: Removing desktop environments
On Mon, Feb 05, 2007 at 07:14:37PM EST, Alan Ianson wrote:
> On Mon February 5 2007 15:29, cga2000 wrote:
> > On Mon, Feb 05, 2007 at 02:13:31PM EST, Alan Ianson wrote:
[...]
> I suspect (but haven't tried it) apt would be ok with stuff from /etc/share
> just going away. It would be put back on upgrade though with the new stuff.
>
> If I had a need to clear disk space I would do it but I'd be very careful
> about loosing necessary data lest something inexplicably stop working. Hard
> drives are so cheap nowadays I'd opt for more disk space first if that's
> doable.
Not for laptops -- even old laptops.
But the correct approach is keeping your system under control in the
first place.
Installing one package at a time and asking yourself thereafter -- do I
really need this..? If in doubt immediately remove it.
At one point I was really tempted by the linux-from-scratch approach.
Among other things it makes installing a lot harder so you really think
twice. The downside being that once you've sweated through the install
you probably also think twice or more before removing anything.
debian makes it so easy to install new software that if you're not
careful you can end up with vast amounts of junk that you don't even
remember how it got there.
> > What bothers me, though, is that a lot of the stuff in /usr/share/ --
> > one Meg here .. 600K there .. etc. apparently belongs to packages I have
> > removed (apt-get remove package-name) .. Probably adds up to a hundred
> > Meg or thereabout .. Looks like I should have specified a purge flag or
> > whatever and I would probably have freed up a couple more hundred
> > Megs.. probably too late now.
>
> Whenever I remove a package I always purge except system stuff I'll generally
> leave the config there in case I want to revisit it.
hmm.. that's a little messy for my personal taste.
.. maybe it would be nice if apt had the capability of migrating a
snapshot of an application that is not currently needed to offline
storage .. and restoring it if/when needed.
would make upgrades a bit more complicated, I guess .. but then you
would type, say:
$ startx $(which enlightenment) -- :1
and apt would ask you to mount a CD labeled .. whatever .. and a few
minutes later you'd be back where you left off .. maybe a year ago ..
like it was yesterday.
> Back when I used dselect packages that had config or other data that
> could be purged where marked with a - instead of _, I suspect aptitude
> is the same but haven't used aptitude to purge anything yet. I thought
> purging only purged the config files but maybe it will also purge
> other data in /usr/share/ but I have yet to try that and see myself.
I definetely like the idea of a system that's small enough so I know
off the top of my head exactly what's installed .. where the files are
and how it's set up .. customized.
Thanks,
cga
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