"apt-get purge" vs. "apt-get remove --purge"

[Derek Broughton]

Tommy Trussell wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 9:08 AM, Pierre Frenkiel
> <pierre.frenkiel at laposte.net> wrote:
>> hi,
>> Is there any subtle difference between the 2 syntaxes?
>> (I couldn't find the answer in any documentation)
> 
> Don't they do different things?

No.
> 
> I believe to remove a PARTICULAR package and all its configuration
> files, you use
> 
> apt-get remove <packagename> --purge

That's old syntax.  aptitude introduced the command "purge" because it was 
felt that adding --purge as an option was inconsistent.  Later apt-get 
introduced the aptitude syntax to, again, maintain consistency.  

> I'm not certain what apt-get purge does without any argument, but on
> my system it suggested some packages I could delete using the apt-get
> autoremove command.

Also an addition to apt-get to make it more like aptitude.  Perhaps the 
--purge syntax wouldn't do that, but it's _only_ a suggestion, anyway, and 
after --purge you should still be able to remove the same packages with 
autoremove.