Hi, I'm wondering how to keep my system clean. By that I mean:
-How do I know there's no installed library or programs that are useless.
-How to make sure that everything installed are available in the menus (beside using the updatedb and update-menus commands).
-When an installation did not make it to the end (because of an error or something), how to know that there's no "half-application" or "half-librairy" somewhere that is useless but just sits there.

Thanks.

Hi,
You might consider asking this question in the distro. forum
for the Mandriva distro.. The answer to your question can get
kinda distro specific. Ill try to help here though.

For questions 1 and 2 - This can be pretty tough, especially if
you do a full install. How to determine if a library ever gets used
is a separate question to ask in the forums. I do not know how
at the moment. Making sure that appropriate apps appear in the
menus is tedious but can be done. The thing here is to know
what all apps you install. This is the reason doing a full install
can make you task kinda tough. For the most part, modern
installation programs can tell what libraries you need based on
your selections at install time.

Most Linux distros are pretty clean out of the box. The thing to
watch is /tmp. It can grow quiet a bit over time. Also, the .
directories in your home directory. For ex. .mozilla . Apps like to
put temp data in those.

If your really serious about knowing what is on your system and
keeping it under control, try www.linuxfromscratch.org.

Question 3 - always format after a failed install. That will fix that
problem.

I know this is not much help, but, you have asked a very large and
broad question. If you find lots of ways to go about keeping
your system clean, you may want to write a how-to on this topic.
If you have this question, chances are that other do to. If your
a programmer, you should consider writing a program that helps
people do this.

Good luck,
Michael

If you always install programs using your distros package management system (urpmi for mandrake, I think), then this will take care of "half-libraries" or whatever.

Also, uninstalling programs using the same system will remove all the libraries that are no longer being used.

/tmp should be emptied when you shut your computer down. Be careful what hidden folders you delete - they are not just for temporary data, they contain your personal settings. For example, if you delete .mozilla, you will lose all of your Mozilla and Firefox bookmarks.

When you reinstall a distro (Something that shouldn't need doing very often), make sure you do a clean install not an upgrade.

I hope this helps
--Ian

I only meant history files and cookies and such in .mozilla.
thx for the clarification though, i would hate for him to
delete his whole .mozilla directory

Stick to packages made for your distro, everything there has been tested and can at least be expected to work. You can go through and uninstall stuff that you don't use, but be careful - only uninstall something if you know what it is otherwise you could accidentally uninstall an important system package or something.

Mandriva requires that all GUI applications packaged for their distro make an entry in the menu. So again all you have to do is stick to stuff packaged for Mandriva.

Again stick to installing packages through urpmi or the GUI equivalent in the Mandrake Control Centre. Anything installed by a (properly written) RPM package will be uninstalled by it, and if there's some error the package won't be installed.

Make sure you goto http://easyurpmi.zarb.org and get access to all the package repos for Mandriva.