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  • Actally, it seems like if you apt-get remove a package that has configuration files, you can later remove them just with apt-get purge $package. IIRC, I'd tried that and it didn't work, through, giving me a package-not-installed error… Commented Jul 13, 2012 at 19:00
  • Hmm. Did you try dpkg -L on these packages? Does it show any files?
    – nik
    Commented Jul 13, 2012 at 20:11
  • Just tested this again. Did a dpkg --get-selections | grep deinstall, then picked one of the packages from that output. dpkg -L $package listed several configuration files the package had created. apt-get remove $package returned a not-installed-so-not-removed warning, but apt-get purge $package asked if I wanted to continue with removing the package, then did so. After that, it did not show up in dpkg --get-selections | grep deinstall. Commented Jul 18, 2012 at 6:26
  • Hmm, that is not my experience. When I run purge, it says "Package $package is not installed, so not removed", and then it still shows up in the list.
    – Hakanai
    Commented Oct 17, 2013 at 23:21