> Maybe you should search the forums for "cruft". I remember Ed (?) Catmur once > posted a script or something there. I use a script named findcruft regularly (I think it is an improved version of Ed Catmur's product; I'll check when I get home). It works by finding all files on the filesystem (avoiding areas such as /proc, /sys/ /dev/, /home, and such) and comparing that to the files managed by Portage. The list of orphaned files is full of false positives, caused by, for example, packages that create files outside the knowledge of portage (I think many eselect modules do this for example). It tries to diminish the "false positives" problem by having a database of packages and files created by using said packages.
This database of course cannot be complete, and unfortunately it seems to be very outdated. I would love to see more maintenance of this script and, more importantly, the database. In the current state, the list of orphaned files is huge, with a good part of it probably being false positives. Since I don't want to move a file without being sure it is cruft, I can only read that list and delete the few files that I know about and am sure are cruft. I also run the script regularly and save the results; each time I run the script I compare the list with the previous one. I normally run the script after I unmerge some packages. In the end, if you want a clean system it seems you either have to reformat every couple of years, or you have to be a walking encyclopedia knowing the origin of every file in the huge list that findcruft outputs so you know if they are cruft or not. Sad. In my opinion, this problem needs to be addressed. -- Software is like sex: it is better when it is free - Linus Torvalds
