Cruft (was Re: Let's have a vote!)
In aptitude I am certain to purge any packages that I am removing that
I'm sure that I won't be using. I even do this on packages that will be
automatically removed upon an upgrade. Every so often I use the Limit
display option to search for removed but configured packages and purge
those. Another tool is the deborphan package which will show packages
that no longer have anything depending on them. Whenever prompted on
whether to install the maintainer's version of a config file I check the
differences and then install the new version and adjust it.
While the foregoing does a good job of keeping the system clean it
doesn't help for the dotfiles. Applications seem to vary in their
ability to deal with older versions of their config and sometimes very
strange bugs/behaviors are the result.
- Nate
--
"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
possible worlds. The pessimist fears this is true."
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