On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 11:05:24AM -0600, Ramasubramanian Ramesh wrote: > All, > > Often one is not sure of the choices and strength of packages/utilities and tend to > install > multiple utilies for the same purpose. For example I have about 3 or 4 cd players > and assortment of > mp3 palyers etc. Sooner or later you see that a lot of left over packages exists in > your system that > you no longer use. > > I am wondering if there is a fool-proof way of cleaning up that eliminates all > unused packages. > Specifically, if I installed package A that brought in packages B C and D due > dependencies. Is there > a way to find out that B C and D are no longer in the dependency list of any > packages after removal > of say A. This will allow me to systematically remove all unwanted packages. > > My naive approach now is > > 1. do a get-selection to see installed packages > 2. mark the ones that you do not need > 3. try apt-get -s remove them to see if any thing else gets removed. > 4. Based on above output prune the list down so that step 3 produces > expected results. > 5. Go ahead with the actual removal > > Are there any better methods? In particular is there a method to draw/list a > directed graph of > dependencies of pacages in the current debian installation? > (or for that matter, do the dependencies form a digraph?) > > Thanks for your help > > Ramesh Hi Ramesh, 'aptitude' can remove related packages when you remove a package. there is also 'deborphan' and 'debfoster'. use carefully! as for the digraph, there is such a beast as someone pointed out! apt-rdepends is its name. do this: apt-get install apt-rdepends dotty apt-redepends -d mutt > mutt.depends.dot dotty mutt.depends.dot apt-rdepends -d -r mutt > uses.mutt.dot dotty uses.mutt.dot
HTH -Kev
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