Even if the Debian package system works extremely well, after running a system and keeping it updated for some longer time, there will remain some orphaned packages. What I am interested is to clean up the remaining orphaned libraries that are no longer in use.

This is exactly what the deborphan package does. From its description:
“deborphan finds “orphaned” packages on your system. It determines which packages have no other packages depending on their installation, and shows you a list of these packages. It is most useful when finding libraries, but it can be used on packages in all sections.”

Just install it:

aptitude install deborphan

Normally I use it by simply typing:

deborphan

and this will show a list of the libraries that are obsolete and then I clean them using aptitude with purge. I prefer to use it like this, because it will give me the control on future actions (it will only report the orphaned packages without taking any action). If I choose, I can remove, if not they can stay.

There are many other options that can be used (just check the man page or help for full usage). Read the rest of this entry »