[SOLVED] why do I have to su

newbiesforever · 05-24-2015, 12:20 PM

I was purging the residual config files left behind after I deleted various software, and something happened that is more a curiosity than a problem.

So I entered the command

Code:

deborphan --find-config | xargs dpkg --purge

That didn't work, just because I forgot to sudo--

Quote:

dpkg: error: requested operation requires superuser privilege

--so I entered it again.

Code:

sudo deborphan --find-config | xargs dpkg --purge

The peculiar result is that I got the same error message despite sudoing.

Quote:

dpkg: error: requested operation requires superuser privilege

Why is the command still asking for the superuser privilege when I just entered it? I already solved the problem by su-ing to root for a minute (my distro does not have sux), but why was sudo not good enough for this command?

Head_on_a_Stick · 05-24-2015, 12:54 PM

Because the second (`dpkg`) command is after a pipe and this is run as a normal user.

Try this instead:

Code:

sudo bash -c 'deborphan --find-config | xargs dpkg --purge'

EDIT: Nice command BTW -- thank you!

newbiesforever · 05-24-2015, 06:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Head_on_a_Stick

EDIT: Nice command BTW -- thank you!

Well, thank you, but I just picked it up from a site linked to by one of the gurus, in http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-files-938113/ . It doesn't work perfectly. For some reason, it won't delete all the files in one attempt, so I have to enter it several times; and after multiple deletions, it starts falsely claiming all the files have been deleted.