<html dir="ltr"><head></head><body style="text-align:left; direction:ltr;"><div><br></div><div><span><pre>On Sun, 2020-05-31 at 19:03 +0100, Ian Bruntlett wrote:</pre></span></div><blockquote type="cite" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex; border-left:2px #729fcf solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">Hi Charles,<br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, 31 May 2020 at 18:45, Charles IRONS <<a href="mailto:irons.charles@gmail.com">irons.charles@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote type="cite" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex; border-left:2px #729fcf solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="text-align:left;direction:ltr">I have used Ubuntu since 2005 and often wondered why packages do not have a counter that is increased when it is used actively.<div><br></div><div>That way each of us could discover which of the many thousands we really need.</div></div></blockquote></div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">Well, many filesystems (all?) track when a file is accessed and you can use the stat command to find that info out for one or more files.</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">Here is an example from my computer:-</div><div class="gmail_quote">$ stat snap-man.txt<br> File: snap-man.txt<br> Size: 32913 Blocks: 72 IO Block: 4096 regular file<br>Device: 805h/2053d Inode: 10511107 Links: 1<br>Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--) Uid: ( 1000/ ian) Gid: ( 1000/ ian)<br>Access: 2020-04-12 19:18:04.714531723 +0100<br>Modify: 2019-10-17 21:27:36.043240284 +0100<br>Change: 2019-10-17 21:27:36.043240284 +0100<br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">So, as you can see, some of the data is there already.</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">Then there is the dpkg command to tell you which package a file is from....</div><div class="gmail_quote">$ dpkg -S /bin/ls<br>coreutils: /bin/ls<br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">So, I suppose a program could be written to go through all files linked to all packages and work out which packages haven't been used at all.</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">But that wouldn't be foolproof. Consider doing the same thing in an office - a fire extinguisher could be considered unused but you would still want it available for use.</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">I am not sure if my idea is viable....</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">HTH,</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">Ian<br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div>-- ACCU - Professionalism in programming - <a href="http://www.accu.org" target="_blank">http://www.accu.org</a><br></div>-- My writing - <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/ianbruntlett/" target="_blank">https://sites.google.com/site/ianbruntlett/</a><br><div>-- Free Software page - <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/ianbruntlett/home/free-software" target="_blank">https://sites.google.com/site/ianbruntlett/home/free-software</a><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><div>*******************************</div><div>Hi Ian</div><div><br></div><div>Maybe the scanning program could show the parent(s) that an unused program is a child of?</div><div><br></div><div>I suppose if an unused program gets invoked, some error would be displayed and the user could install it? </div><div><br></div><div>I know too little about such hierarchies to pursue this idea. Just hope it could boost productivity overall.</div><div><br></div><div>Thanks for your response. Take care. Chas</div><div><br></div><pre>-- <br></pre><div>Our preferred address is</div><a href="mailto:irons.charles@gmail.com"><a href="mailto:irons.charles@gmail.com">irons.charles@gmail.com</a></a><div>Mobile +2783 588 0028</div></body></html>