The sys admin’s daily grind: Deborphan

DEBIAN ORPHANAGE

Article from Issue 78/2007
Author(s):

Debian fans appreciate the ability to update their systems to a new release without having to reinstall. The Deborphan tool takes care of the victims of the upgrade by searching for orphaned packages on which no other packages depend.

I must admit, my conscience is troubling me slightly. As far as I can remember, I’ve never actually reviewed a distribution-specific software tool before today. However, a quick survey of my local LUG revealed that Deborphan is unknown even among long-standing Debian users, so here we go. Debian systems go through various release changes in the course of their lives. If you check out the directories with the libraries in particular, you can’t help noticing that many of them are long overdue for retirement. For some reason, Debian just keeps them – you never know when you might need them.

Buy this article as PDF

Express-Checkout as PDF
Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
 
SUBSCRIPTIONS
 
TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS
Get it on Google Play

US / Canada

Get it on Google Play

UK / Australia

Related content

  • Free Software Projects

    Free software covers such a diverse range of utilities, applications, and other assorted projects that it can be hard to find the perfect tool. We pick the best of the bunch. This month, we discuss Ubuntu, Debfoster, and Deborphan.

  • Clean System

    Linux and many Internet services just love logging. To keep your system from putting on too much weight and wasting valuable disk space, we present an effective diet with guaranteed success.

  • RPM Tools

    Linux has several convenient package management systems, but they are not entirely free of weaknesses. We show you how to keep the RPM package management system permanently stable and how to get rid of some ballast with just two small programs: rpmorphan and rpmrestore.

  • Charly's Column

    Users log on to services such as SSH, ftp, SASL, POP3, IMAP, Apache htaccess, and many more using their names and passwords. These popular access mechanisms are a potential target for brute-force attacks. An attentive bouncer will keep dictionary attacks at bay.

  • Tool Tips

    We test Yuck, Uftpd, Guncat, Kiwix, Miller, and Debian Package Search.

comments powered by Disqus
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters

Support Our Work

Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

Learn More

News