If you want to clean up your Ubuntu or Debian machine and delete unnecessary (orphaned) deb packages you can use utility deborphan. It finds packages that have no packages depending on them. The default operation is to search only within the libs and oldlibs sections to hunt down unused libraries.
Install deborphan with command sudo apt-get install deborphan and then let’s proceed with cleaning up. To delete unnecessary libraries just execute:
sudo deborphan | xargs sudo apt-get -y remove --purge
To delete unnecessary data packages use command:
sudo deborphan --guess-data | xargs sudo apt-get -y remove --purge
To see all packages which aren’t required by any others use command
deborphan --guess-all
At my Ubuntu laptop I’ve got the following output:
gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-doc
libusb-dev
libgstreamer-perl
gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-dbg
gstreamer0.10-plugins-good-doc
...
libgstreamer-gconf0.8-dev
gstreamer0.10-gnonlin-dev
gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse-dbg
gstreamer0.10-plugins-base-dbg
gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-doc
libxcomposite-dev
There is another tool to delete orphaned packages, it’s GtkOrphan (sudo apt-get install gtkorphan) that does the same as deborphan but is built as graphical application. Once it’s installed go to System –> Administration –> Remove Orphaned Packages, enter your password and proceed with cleaning up.
Another nice tip is to clean partial and orphaned packages by commands:
sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo apt-get autoremove
Just always use aptitude instead of apt-get, and you won’t have to..
Hi Kevin,
You’re right, actually I recommend aptitude too, but there are people who use apt-get still. This is primarily for them
Thanks for comment!
Starting with the edgy, aptitude and apt-get has the same functionality when you consider the dependency removal.
Great little how-to… Worked great and really cleaned my system out.
sudo apt-get install deborphan; sudo deborphan | xargs sudo apt-get -y remove –purge
worked and it removed 46 packages and obtained 16.6MB of free disk space on my computer (Xubuntu Lucid.) Thanks