[kwlug-disc] Purging already removed Debian packages.

[Lori Paniak]

And I swear by the "gui" for aptitude.  Easy to use and powerful.  Nice
for browsing/searching all packages and works in a terminal locally or
remotely. It does have a bit of a learning curve to it though.

There, purging is a natural extension of removing a package:

To remove a package press "-"

To purge a package press "_" (underscore)

dpkg, apt-get, aptitude, synaptic: it's all FLOSS - the choice is yours!


On Fri, 2010-05-14 at 12:40 -0400, Khalid Baheyeldin wrote:
> I have found that aptitude from the command line is always the best
> tool for Debian/Ubuntu.
> 
> So wherever one thinks s/he may use apt-get ..., just use aptitude ...
> and thinks work fine. Now it is second nature.
> 
> As for the interactive interface for aptitude, I could never get used
> to it, and hence never use it, for good or ill ...
> 
> On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 11:09 AM, Andrew Cant
> <acant at alumni.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>         Thanks everyone for you response. It looks like Khalid has the
>         winning
>         submission.
>         Doing a purge through apt-get complains that the package is
>         not
>         installed, and therefore cannot be purged.
>         
>         But aptitude seems to handle this situation no problem,
>         purging the
>         offending package even when it is removed.
>         
>         
>         
>         On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 2:35 AM, Kevin
>         <norwood.kevin at gmail.com> wrote:
>         > On 13/05/2010 11:23 PM, Andrew Cant wrote:
>         >>
>         >> Here is a little Debian question:
>         >>
>         >> How do I purge a package that I have already removed?
>         >> (For those not familiar with Debian when you 'remove' a
>         package the
>         >> configuration files are left in place for future use.
>         Unless you
>         >> 'purge' it, then everything is removed.
>         >>
>         >> Doing a little research the normal method would be to
>         re-install and
>         >> then purge, like so:
>         >>
>         >> sudo apt-get install example_package
>         >> sudo apt-get purge example_package
>         >>
>         >> But unfortunately the packages that I need to purge no
>         longer have
>         >> install candidates, so I cannot install them.
>         >>
>         >> Any suggestions? How can I purge a removed package without
>         re-installing
>         >> it?
>         >>
>         >> Thanks
>         >>
>         >> Andrew
>         >>
>         >> (P.S.: For context, this has come up in the process of
>         installing
>         >> Debian stable, and immediately upgrading to
>         testing(squeeze). The
>         >> update to squeeze wants to change me over to dependency
>         based-booting,
>         >> but because of some files left around by some of the
>         removed packages
>         >> it can't. So I need to purge before I can have it try
>         setting up the
>         >> dependency-based booting again.)
>         >>
>         >> _______________________________________________
>         >> kwlug-disc_kwlug.org mailing list
>         >> kwlug-disc_kwlug.org at kwlug.org
>         >>
>         http://astoria.ccjclearline.com/mailman/listinfo/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org
>         >>
>         >>
>         >
>         > sudo apt-purge <package name> won't work? It has been a
>         while for me.
>         >
>         > _______________________________________________
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>         > kwlug-disc_kwlug.org at kwlug.org
>         >
>         http://astoria.ccjclearline.com/mailman/listinfo/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org
>         >
>         
>         _______________________________________________
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>         
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Khalid M. Baheyeldin
> 2bits.com, Inc.
> http://2bits.com
> Drupal optimization, development, customization and consulting.
> Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability. --  Edsger W.Dijkstra
> Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. --   Leonardo da Vinci
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