16

To be more specific, I would like to do the equivalent of adding the --purge flag to the following command

sudo apt-get autoremove --purge [package name]

to packages that are no longer on the system.

Preferably, I would like to know how to do it to specific packages and to every uninstalled package in the system.

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2
  • The question is not clearly worded. I assume you mean - "how does one remove configuration files from packages that have been removed from the system, but still have configuration files installed". Bringing in autoremove is just confusing, imo.
    – Faheem Mitha
    Commented Mar 28, 2012 at 5:20
  • @FaheemMitha Changed the title according to your suggestions. But I think the autoremove only would make things confusing if I didn't write anything else. But the sentence "I would like to do the equivalent of adding the --purge flag to the following command" makes things clear.
    – Alexandre Martins
    Commented Mar 28, 2012 at 18:19

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
19

The following should do what you want:

aptitude purge \~c

This purges all packages with the c (package removed, configuration files still present) state flag. Flag documentation is here.

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5
  • Sorry, it's not working line 1> # sudo aptitude purge '-c' line 2> aptitude: invalid option -- 'c'
    – Alexandre Martins
    Commented Mar 27, 2012 at 15:10
  • 4
    @AlexandreMartins The first character in the quotes is a tilde, not a hyphen.
    – Chris Down
    Commented Mar 27, 2012 at 15:11
  • aptitude purge ~c works as well
    – Ortomala Lokni
    Commented Feb 21, 2015 at 14:11
  • @OrtomalaLokni Not reliably. ~[user] is a valid POSIX tilde expansion.
    – Chris Down
    Commented Feb 21, 2015 at 17:32
  • @Chris Down Ok, in the case you have a user named c
    – Ortomala Lokni
    Commented Feb 21, 2015 at 17:38
8

For those who don't want to install aptitude:

sudo dpkg -P $(dpkg -l | awk '/^rc/ { print($2) }')
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2

The --purge flag removes configuration files for packages that are no longer installed. I don't recommend blindly removing configuration files for all uninstalled packages. You might want to keep some of them. For an individual package, dpkg -P will work (-P stands for --purge). Here alacarte only has its configuration files installed, hence the rc flags. E.g.

orwell:/home/faheem# dpkg -l alacarte
[...]
rc  alacarte                           0.11.5-1                           easy GNOME menu editing tool
orwell:/home/faheem# dpkg -P alacarte
(Reading database ... 345418 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing alacarte ...
Purging configuration files for alacarte ...
orwell:/home/faheem# dpkg -l alacarte
[...]
un  alacarte                           <none>                             (no description available)
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2
  • Usually, I keep the important configurations in my own home folder. This means the --purge flag does not do anything problematic to me. And it actually helps me not having any problems later on. Is there any good reason you say I shouldn't use --purge that I'm missing?
    – Alexandre Martins
    Commented Mar 28, 2012 at 17:51
  • 1
    @AlexandreMartins: If you are sure you don't have any configuration in any of the system config files, that is fine, I guess. That is definitely not the case for me though.
    – Faheem Mitha
    Commented Mar 28, 2012 at 21:33
-1 
aptitude --clean-on-startup

That should clear the package cache.

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1
  • 3
    Following the manuale page: "Cleans the package cache when the program starts". This is not what the OP asked.
    – enzotib
    Commented Mar 27, 2012 at 16:39

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