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Long live Debian

• behnamoh 3y ago
  Does `apt` handle packages as cleanly as `dnf` and `yum`? Last time I tried `apt`, it would uninstall apps without cleaning after itself.
  • kstrauser 3y ago
    “apt purge” takes no prisoners.
    • npteljes 3y ago
      Apt purge cleans up user config files after a package, but not package dependencies. For complete package removal, apt autoremove is needed even after apt purge.
      • kstrauser 3y ago
        True, but its output suggests that you do that and tells you what it would autoremove.
        • npteljes 3y ago
          Indeed. So it not only doesn't do a complete job, it "takes prisoners" too. Taking no prisoners would mean it's aggressive, relentless, thorough, and apt is neither of these, it's a solid, professional tool, with some legacy baggage, but at least it's friendly and discoverable about it. In the current thread, I'm only nit-picky about this, because OP said "Last time I tried `apt`, it would uninstall apps without cleaning after itself". To which to suggest that apt-purge does clean up after itself is incorrect. It does some additional cleaning-up, but it doesn't do a complete cleaning-up. That being said, of all the package managers I tried, I still like apt the best. I feel like it's the most straightforward and user-friendly of all of them.
      • behnamoh 3y ago
        So apt uninstall -> apt purge -> apt autoremove That looks like an unnecessarily long process to safely remove a package. Why isn't that the default behavior on Debian?
        • Calzifer 3y ago
          You can skip the uninstall if you use purge. And aptitude (alternative package manager) automatically removes dependent but not required anymore packages when removing/purging a package.
          • oynqr 3y ago
            There's also autopurge, which can take arguments of additional packages to purge, like autoremove. So you only really need _one_ command.
  • 8organicbits 3y ago
    Do you remember which package, or if it was an official Debian package vs third-party? The former is usually pretty well written. Do you have a use-case where packages are regularly uninstalled? I usually only install.
  • bityard 3y ago
    It will not automatically remove dependencies that were installed along with a package when that package is removed. I'm guessing this is due to some historical ideology about how `apt-get` was intended to function. I just typically run `apt remove foobar && apt -y autoremove`. There is also nala, which _does_ automatically remove dependencies when you remove a package: https://github.com/volitank/nala https://github.com/volitank/nala
    • dylan604 3y ago
      Is it aware if another package is using the same dependency, so it only removes the dependency if it is not being used by anything else?
      • sigio 3y ago
        Yes, that's what 'apt autoremove' does... remove packages that were installed as a dependancy, but are no longer needed because packages using it have been removed. However, the package could of course still be used by unpackaged software or local scripts.
        • deleted 3y ago
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    • Calzifer 3y ago
      aptitude also auto removes dependent packages and is in Debian stable. It has also a useful 'aptitude why package' to say why a package is installed and a nice TUI (which is optional; for the most part it works very similar to apt).
  • stonogo 3y ago
    Nowadays you can just pass --autoremove to `apt purge <package>` and it will.
• deleted 3y ago
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