Kernels galore and no NVIDIA driver in sight

[Keith]

On 12/22/24 2:58 PM, Little Girl wrote:
> Hey there,
> 
> Keith via ubuntu-users wrote:
>> On 12/21/24 12:14 PM, Little Girl wrote:
> 
>>>> $ sudo apt -s purge ~c
>>>
>>> Ouch. That gave output of 363 lines that I've attached to this
>>> message as a text file.
>>
>> Oof, that's a bit unexpected unless you've never run autoremove with
>> the "--purge" option before.
> 
> I haven't. My routine is:
> 
> 1. Fetch updates:
> sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade && snap refresh
> 
> 2. Reboot if prompted.
> 
> 3. Tidy up:
> sudo apt update && sudo apt autoremove && sudo apt clean && sudo apt
> purge

Not really necessary to run update at this point since you've already 
performed an upgrade action in the first step. And if you change 
autoremove to either "autoremove --purge" or just "autopurge", you won't 
need to run "apt purge" by itself. In fact purge by itself doesn't do 
anything without something to act on.

If you wanted you could combine upgrade and autoremove into one command
$ sudo apt full-upgrade --autoremove --purge *
*autopurge isn't accepted as a valid option with the upgrade action so 
you have to also include "--purge" unless you add the apt config option 
listed at the bottom of the page.

And if you put the following line in the example 90aptprefs.conf I 
mentioned previously, you won't have to include "apt clean" at all as 
apt won't keep any downloaded packages after installation.

apt::keep-downloaded-packages "0";

Or you could change the max age at which the systemd 
apt-daily-upgrade.service cleans packages out of the apt cache by 
editing /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20archive. Default is 30 days. If you change 
MaxAge to 1 (0 disables checking) and MinAge to 0, the cache will 
automatically be cleaned every 1-2 days.

> 
>> That's fine. I just wanted to confirm the nvidia module was the 535
>> version loaded with the 5.15.0-130-generic kernel. So the your
>> graphic driver is good with the current kernel.
> 
> Interesting. Why is that? I haven't gotten an NVIDIA driver since
> before these three latest kernels. Does the current NVIDIA driver get
> built with new kernels automatically when the kernel is updated?

Yes, the nvidia-dkms-535 package, which is a dependency of the 
nvidia-driver-535 package, will automatically build a new nvidia kernel 
module whenever the kernel and kernel-headers packages are upgraded.

> 
>> I don't believe that you'll harm anything the way it looks now, but
>> autoremove doesn't remove config files unless you add the "--purge"
>> option (autopurge is just a shortcut for that), so you'll have a
>> bunch entries with "rc" still left in your "dpkg -l" output.
> 
> Okay, that's a relief that it shouldn't do any harm. I'll be curious
> how much space this buys me, too.

I wouldn't think alot since most config files are typically small in size.

> 
>> After you run "apt autoremove (or autopurge)" I would still run
>> "apt purge ~c" afterwards to remove any residual config files.
> 
> Okay, good to know. So, does this look like a good new routine that
> would keep things more tidy from now on?
> 
> 1. Fetch updates:
> sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade && snap refresh
> 
> 2. Reboot if prompted.
> 
> 3. Tidy up:
> sudo apt update && sudo apt autoremove --purge && sudo apt clean &&
> sudo apt purge && sudo apt purge ~c
> 

I would go ahead run "sudo apt purge ~c" first to get rid of residual 
config files that are on the system now. It shouldn't be necessary to 
run it after this one time if you start using "autoremove --purge"

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade --autoremove --purge

And if you also wanted, you could make removing and autoremoving action 
to default to a purge and autopurge action by putting

apt::get::purge=1;

in that 90aptprefs.conf file referred to earlier.

thus if you use the changes I've included here, you should only have to this

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade --autoremove

-- 
Keith