remove old software:

go_sooner · 04-03-2004, 01:38 PM

I want to remove old versions of the same software installed in the system. I want to keep only the recent version of files.

I could see entries like this

aclocal-1.4
aclocal-1.6

emacs-20.7
emacs20

and lot of entries like this in several folders.

I dont know how to purge all these files. Please help me.

Thanks.

Sooner.

leonscape · 04-03-2004, 01:45 PM

These multiple versions for aclocal, autoconf, automake etc, are for compatability reasons. but a simple apt-get remove ( --purge optional to get rid of any config files ) will remove them. aclocal is part of the automake package.

Also emacs20 emacs20-7 are probably the same package. emacs20 points to emacs20-7.

go_sooner · 04-04-2004, 01:18 PM

I did use the command, dselect and then in that remove any used software, as well as configure software, etc. after running them only, I found multiple versions of same software, or maybe as you said.

Thanks for the info.

Vgn

geekzen · 04-04-2004, 02:25 PM

If you want an interface to apt that works well, try aptitude. Its curses based, so it should run on just about anything, and makes package management a whole lot easier. (apt-get install aptitude)

xcity · 04-04-2004, 07:40 PM

I think you need this command, apt-get autoclean

waster · 04-06-2004, 05:30 PM

apt-get autoclean just removes the old downloaded .deb files

after removing unwanted stuff using aptitude (excellent tool), use deborphan:

nb this is a bit risky, but you can generally get away with it;

apt-get remove --purge `deborphan`

(reverse single quotes)

Finally, run this script:

dpkg --purge `dpkg -l | rgrep ^.c.* | awk '{ print $2 }'`

which purges all config for packages which are not installed.