remove package and its dependencies?

[clockworks]

What is the apt command to remove a package and all it's dependencies that aren't being used by other packages?

Thanks.

[Rog131]

Re: remove package and its dependencies?

APT HOWTO
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/ap.../index.en.html

3.3 Removing packages
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/ap....html#s-remove

If you no longer want to use a package, you can remove it from your system using APT. To do this just type: apt-get remove package.

As you can see in the above example, APT also takes care of removing packages which depend on the package you have asked to remove. There is no way to remove a package using APT without also removing those packages that depend on it.

Running apt-get as above will cause the packages to be removed but their configuration files, if any, will remain intact on the system. For a complete removal of the package, run:

# apt-get --purge remove package

and so on ...

[clockworks]

Re: remove package and its dependencies?

Sorry, I wasn't specific enough...

How to I remove package A and all the packages that package A depends on
that aren't being used by other packages.

This is different that "apt-get remove package_A" which removes package A
and all packages that depend on package A.

Thanks for the help,

[riot]

Re: remove package and its dependencies?

Use aptitude when you install instead of apt-get:
# sudo aptitude install <package>

To delete the program and all dependencies you go:
# sudo aptitude remove <package>

That will remove the program and all dependencies which are not needed by any other programs. You need to install with aptitude for this to work, otherwise it will be treated as apt-get when you delete.

[aysiu]

Re: remove package and its dependencies?

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/aptitude

In the meantime, you'll need gtkorphan or deborphan to get rid of the dependencies you installed with apt-get or Adept.

[kubicle]

Re: remove package and its dependencies?

Also, on edgy eft, you can use command

sudo apt-get autoremove

to remove unneeded dependencies

This works similar to (but not identical to) aptitude...that is you have to have installed the package (and it's dependencies) with apt-get, adept or synaptic. AFAIK it's not compatible with the aptitude system, at least not yet.

You can also 'autoremove' depencies with synaptic in edgy, I don't think Adept has a similar feature yet.

This is a new feature in apt, so it isn't unfortunately available for dapper :P

[clockworks]

Re: remove package and its dependencies?

Thank you for the help, everyone. That answered all my questions very well.