Sharon Kimble wrote: > Yesterday I removed the meta-package of LibreOffice, and then installed the > source package of LibreOffice 3.6.5.2. I now find that it wasn't fully > removed as I'm still able to open and use documents with the old programme.
The meta-package is a "meta" precisely because it defines dependencies
upon other packages and by installing the meta will pull in all of the
additional parts. If you only remove the meta package then those
additional parts will of course remain installed.
> So, how do I *completely* remove all of the old LibreOffice without
> removing all or most of Gnome, which I still want to have around,
> please?
Debian has a concept of packages that are explicitly installed and
those that are only automatically installed due to being a
dependency. Every time apt-get is run it will remind you that there
are automatically installed packages that are no longer needed. It
will remind you that those can be removed using 'apt-get autoremove'.
I do this routinely to keep my system tidy.
If the suite of libreoffice packages were installed because you
installed the meta package then removing the meta package will make
those candidates for removal. And since you wish to remove all trace
of the package including /etc conffiles then the --purge option is
appropriate. But inspect the package list carefully to make sure that
you do not remove/purge something that you wish to keep!
# apt-get autoremove --purge
If you have never done this then there may also be packages there that
you wish to keep. Look carefully. But if you keep your system tidy
then this will be a very manageable small list.
If for some reason you have explicitly installed a package then this
may be manually adjusted back to automatic using the apt-mark
command. That command also takes file glob wildcards making it easy
to mark the entire suite as automatic.
# apt-mark auto libreoffice'*' openoffice.org'*'
...a very large amount of output...
Having marked all of those as automatic they would certainly now be
candidates for autoremoval. Example:
root@example:~# apt-get autoremove --purge
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
libreoffice-base* libreoffice-base-core* libreoffice-calc* libreoffice-draw*
libreoffice-emailmerge* libreoffice-filter-binfilter*
libreoffice-filter-mobiledev* libreoffice-gnome* libreoffice-gtk*
libreoffice-help-en-us* libreoffice-impress* libreoffice-java-common*
libreoffice-math* libreoffice-writer* libwps-0.2-2* openoffice.org-base*
openoffice.org-calc* openoffice.org-common* openoffice.org-draw*
openoffice.org-emailmerge* openoffice.org-filter-binfilter*
openoffice.org-filter-mobiledev* openoffice.org-gnome* openoffice.org-gtk*
openoffice.org-help-en-us* openoffice.org-impress*
openoffice.org-java-common* openoffice.org-math*
openoffice.org-style-galaxy* openoffice.org-style-tango*
openoffice.org-writer*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 31 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 145 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
Again, when doing a --purge operation always inspect the list
carefully because the --purge will remove /etc conffiles associated
with the packages. That is the difference between purge and remove
as remove does not and leaves those files behind making a re-install
simple and easy but leaving lint behind.
The specific reason I am suggesting using the autoremove feature
instead of simply removing the packages directly is for two reasons.
One is that it will also remove library packages that were only pulled
in as a dependency. Two is that it won't remove something that is
still in use by some other different package.
Bob
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