Can Apt-Get scan my computer and remove excess files (like old copies of file that were upgraded with newer versions) and remove them?

If not what can I do to remove files no longer needed by my machine?

Mike

Old copies are usually removed when the new ones are installed. You can however have multiple versions of somethings at the same time ( things like gcc for example) so you can just remove the ones you don't want with apt-get remove --purge, this will warn you if anything is dependant on it.

The other thing that can happen is an orphaned package ( where nothing else depends on it ) To check for these you can use deborphan ( apt-get install deborphan ). Use it carefully.

To remove excess stuff that apt-get has use apt-get autoclean

When I remove a package, like lets say GAIM, will all the extra files (like dependencies) be removed with it?

Mike

What it depends on No, its other files Yes. Configuration files will be left behind unless you told apt-get to purge.

Thats why we have deborphan. Also most of a packages depedancies might be needed by something else. but to see what a package depends on ( so you can try to remove them ) use

apt-cache depends thepackage

From what I saw, what gaim depends on most of Gnome depends on as well.

aptitude is a front-end for apt-get that has options for cleaning obsolete files.

I love Aptitude!

I run a PII/266/128Mb RAM/10GB/Sid/GRUB So i try to keep it 'lean and fast'.

After a fresh install, the second thing i do, after installing a firewall is:

#apt-get install deborphan debfoster localepurge

DEBORPHAN

after installing 'deborphan', invoke it:

#deborphan

it will give you a list of "orphaned" libraries sometimes approaching 40 MB, to get rid of them:

#deborphan | xargs apt-get -y remove --purge

without the flag -y it will abort.

this will take care of the list of files listed when you first invoked 'deborphan'.

DEBFOSTER
This is a very good program to get rid of things you THOUGHT were gone when you did an

'apt-get -y remove --purge <name of package>

I purged emacs21 (i prefer Vim), debfoster came up asking me if i wanted to keep 'emacsen', hehe, i nuked it.

invoke it:

#debfoster

if you make a mistake, don't panic, just press the key 'U' to undo and correct your mistake, the question will pop again, check 'H' for help. If you don't know what a file/library does, DO NOT ERASE IT.

LOCALEPURGE

This will eliminate all the locales you don't need after installing a program. This will save you tons of real estate on your hdd. What i do is this:

#dpkg-reconfigure locales

i choose all the instances of en_US and es_ES, (spanish being my native tongue) set my language environment in the next screen, it will generate the locales and voilá.

Next, i invoke localepurge

#localepurge

it will take me to a list of locales identical to the one previously explained. Click OK, answer the next questions and you are set.

The next time you install a package it will just keep the locales you specified, you don't need Russian or Rumanian if you barely speak English, and viceversa.

One last note: after purging a program run

apt-get clean

this will nuke all files in the installation of that package. If you want it again, then reinstall it with apt-get.

I do the debfoster and deborphan bit once a week.

Whoa, thanks a lot.

Mike