In Debian based systems, how do we purge configuration files of packages that have already been uninstalled?

Question

To be more specific, I would like to do the equivalent of adding the --purge flag to the following command

sudo apt-get autoremove --purge [package name]

to packages that are no longer on the system.

Preferably, I would like to know how to do it to specific packages and to every uninstalled package in the system.

Solution 1

The following should do what you want:

aptitude purge \~c

This purges all packages with the c (package removed, configuration files still present) state flag. Flag documentation is here.

Solution 2

For those who don't want to install aptitude:

sudo dpkg -P $(dpkg -l | awk '/^rc/ { print($2) }')

Solution 3

The --purge flag removes configuration files for packages that are no longer installed. I don't recommend blindly removing configuration files for all uninstalled packages. You might want to keep some of them. For an individual package, dpkg -P will work (-P stands for --purge). Here alacarte only has its configuration files installed, hence the rc flags. E.g.

orwell:/home/faheem# dpkg -l alacarte
[...]
rc  alacarte                           0.11.5-1                           easy GNOME menu editing tool
orwell:/home/faheem# dpkg -P alacarte
(Reading database ... 345418 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing alacarte ...
Purging configuration files for alacarte ...
orwell:/home/faheem# dpkg -l alacarte
[...]
un  alacarte                           <none>                             (no description available)

Comments

[Alen Milakovic]

The question is not clearly worded. I assume you mean - "how does one remove configuration files from packages that have been removed from the system, but still have configuration files installed". Bringing in autoremove is just confusing, imo.

[Alexandre Martins]

@FaheemMitha Changed the title according to your suggestions. But I think the autoremove only would make things confusing if I didn't write anything else. But the sentence "I would like to do the equivalent of adding the --purge flag to the following command" makes things clear.

[Alexandre Martins]

Sorry, it's not working line 1> # sudo aptitude purge '-c' line 2> aptitude: invalid option -- 'c'

[clerksx]

@AlexandreMartins The first character in the quotes is a tilde, not a hyphen.

[enzotib]

Following the manuale page: "Cleans the package cache when the program starts". This is not what the OP asked.

[Alexandre Martins]

Usually, I keep the important configurations in my own home folder. This means the --purge flag does not do anything problematic to me. And it actually helps me not having any problems later on. Is there any good reason you say I shouldn't use --purge that I'm missing?

[Alen Milakovic]

@AlexandreMartins: If you are sure you don't have any configuration in any of the system config files, that is fine, I guess. That is definitely not the case for me though.

[clerksx]

@OrtomalaLokni Not reliably. ~[user] is a valid POSIX tilde expansion.

[Ortomala Lokni]

@Chris Down Ok, in the case you have a user named c