How to completely remove an application as well as the configuration files?

[Jason Wilson]

On Sun, 7 Sep 2008, Steve Lamb wrote:

> On Sun, Sep 07, 2008 at 07:30:53PM -0400, Jason Wilson wrote:
>> How this happened, I'm not quite sure. I don't *think* Linux installs more
>> than one installation of a program, in the way that Windows does. However,
>> I also don't understand why apt-get --purge didn't completely remove
>> everything, including configuration files and others. Can somebody
>> enlighten us as to how/why this happened?
>
>    Without some C&P from the OP, probably not.  However there is one case
> where apt will not purge configuration files; that is the case of custom
> configuration.  Additional files that the package manager does not know about
> will never be purged.  It only purges what it knows about.  In the case of the
> way apache2 is configured there are quite a few files the user adds to get
> things up and running.
>
>    Hmmmm, just a thought, since all of this was done with apt and apt is
> pathetic when it comes to removing packages which were automatically installed
> try doing a purge on apache2.2-common.  I can't find a listing of its files
> online at the moment nor do I want to install it just to find out.  But I'm
> willing to bet that the configuration and init.d script are contained in
> -common instead of one of the packages that install the binary.
>
>    Also, if this works, switch to aptitude so in the future when stuff is
> added automagically and you remove the only dependancy it goes away as well.
> ;)
>
> --
>         Steve C. Lamb         | But who can decide what they dream
>       PGP Key: 1FC01004       |      and dream I do
> -------------------------------+---------------------------------------------

Steve-

Thanks for your input. It is possible that apt-get doesn't remove all 
apache2 files.

I don't want to hijack this thread, so I'll ask you questions regarding 
aptitude on a new one.

Jason