On 9/4/2012 2:48 PM, Jon Dowland wrote:
On Mon, Sep 03, 2012 at 03:23:21PM -0700, Weaver wrote:I find the packages 'cruft' and 'deborphan' work fairly well together. I find Bleachbit to be a little too militant.All of the above will find packages that are not being used. But, packages that are not being used are not loaded and thus not contributing towards system instability. The OP needs to look at what is *running* and what they are actively *using* to solve their issues issues.
Yes, that's right. I have already gone through my system with fire and sword, hacking and burning through the elderly packages (libraries, mostly) that do nothing but take up space. What I am looking to do is make it more stable without doing a complete reinstall. This may include not only packages that are misbehaving, but also things like config files, corrupted files, bad and/or out-of-date drivers or firmware, locating malfunctioning hardware, basically anything that doesn't work.
I am at a mid-level of Debian understanding. I understand the technology, but I'm not sufficiently experienced. I'm no guru. I need good places to start, suggestions about things I may have overlooked, etc.
Any help in this area would be very appreciated. Mark