Aptitude--any users!

[James Freer]

On 1 May 2011 21:18, Alan Pope <alan at popey.com> wrote:
> On 1 May 2011 21:15, James Freer <jessejazza at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> Recently looking at the aptitude man file i realised i'd overlooked
>> the 'purge' option. My understanding of aptitude was that IF used for
>> ALL installs it remembers files and thus on removal removes all  - in
>> practice i've found it does this. So what does the purge option do?
>> What instances would this be useful for.
>>
>
> Purge will get rid of config as well as the application.
>
> So for example if you install apache2, you'll get the apache web
> server and some config in /etc/apache2. If you remove the package
> you'll get rid of the application but the config will remain.
>
> If you purge it you'll remove the application and the config.
>
> Cheers,
> Al.

Wow that was a speedy reply! Thanks

In other words what i've thought with aptitude isn't quite the case so
use purge. So what i read in the Ubuntu Linux Bible wasn't correct.

So what was the situation regarding apt-get. Autoremove seems to
remove dependencies but not config files [or at least not all]. Does
purge in apt-get remove ALL - if so why was autoremove developed.

Sorry if i seem dim but when one reads manuals i don't recall anyone
saying use Purge for both aptitude and apt-get. It seems at good idea
to keep one's system clean.

james