Sweeping the Machine

[Brian McKee]

On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 10:45 AM, Steve Brettell <sbrettell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Is there a good program for cleaning up unused files and removing
> accidentals that just seem to build up over time?  Something like "Registry
> Cleaner," in Windows?

Hi Steve

The problems in Linux aren't really the same.  Because each program
uses it's own settings file rather than a central registry - an extra
setting or two doesn't do anything except take up a smidgen of hard
drive space.  It doesn't affect the rest of the OS or programs.

When you uninstall a program a couple of things can get left behind.

Settings are normally not removed.  The theory is if you ever
reinstall you'll be right back where you wanted to be instead of
having to start over.   If you don't like that behaviour you can
adjust Synaptic to 'completely' remove a program when you uninstall.

The other thing that can happen is sometimes software is added just
because another piece of software requires it - its a 'dependency.'
Removing the program again doesn't always remove that dependency, even
though it was added just for that one program.    I usually use
aptitude from the command-line, which DOES prompt you about removing
these 'orphans'   To be honest, I'm not sure how Synaptic handles
orphans, perhaps someone else can pipe up here?

After that big long explanation though I'll give you the real answer -
don't worry about it.   Linux software is usually better than Windows
software for cleaning up after itself (if you use packages from normal
repositories and don't install from source) and linux isn't really
affected by remaining odds and sods much anyway.   If you want to run
a really tight ship, by all means look at these options and programs
like deborphan, but it's not required to have a smooth well running
box year after year.

HTH
Brian