This is a text-only version of the following page on https://raymii.org: --- Title : Debian packages clean up commands Author : Remy van Elst Date : 01-01-2010 URL : https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/Debian-apt-get-dpkg-packages-cleanup-commands.html Format : Markdown/HTML --- As all my servers run on Debian and I like to keep things clean, here are some handy commands.

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##### Find large packages dpkg --get-selections | cut -f1 | while read pkg; do dpkg -L $pkg | xargs -I'{}' bash -c 'if [ ! -d "{}" ]; then echo "{}"; fi' | tr '\n' '\000' | du -c --files0-from - | tail -1 | sed "s/total/$pkg/"; done | sort -rn > ~/packages.log.txt If you run this as root, when its finished you will have a file in /root called packages.log.txt which has all the packages from your system in it with the size of the package and the files it uses: 15312 perl-modules 14192 php5-cgi 12588 perl 12400 coreutils 12396 iso-codes 11232 aptitude 10684 binutils 9916 python2.5 You can also use something like dpkg-query -Wf '${Installed-Size}\t${Package}\n' | sort -n but this also takes the size of databases and extra files. ##### Remove config files If you uninstall stuff with apt-get remove sometimes debian does not removes config files and they also take up space. Now you can just use apt-get purge but I tend to forget that every time. This command lists all the packages which are removed but still have config files on your system: dpkg --list | grep '^rc ' rc binutils 2.20.1-15 The GNU assembler, linker and binary utilities rc dbus 1.2.24-3 simple interprocess messaging system rc dpkg-dev 1.15.8.5 Debian package development tools rc erlang-base 1:14.a-dfsg-2 Erlang/OTP virtual machine and base applications rc fakeroot 1.14.4-1 Gives a fake root environment Now, just to make sure check the output and then remove the config files with this command: dpkg --list | grep '^rcb' | awk '{ print $2 }' | xargs dpkg -P ##### Cleanup afterwards To save up some space via apt get you can use these commands: apt-get autoremove apt-get clean autoremove removes unused dependencies, packages which were installed by other packeges but which are no longer needed by your system. clean just removes all the packages in the apt cache. You can also use autoclean but clean frees up more space. This command shows all the packages which are installed on your system because some package recommends it, but they are not actually dependencies of packages: aptitude search '?and( ?automatic(?reverse-recommends(?installed)), ?not(?automatic(?reverse-depends(?installed))) )' can give something like this: i A apt-xapian-index - maintenance and search tools for a Xapian index of Debian packages i A exim4 - metapackage to ease Exim MTA (v4) installation i A file - Determines file type using "magic" numbers i A heirloom-mailx - feature-rich BSD mail(1) Check the output and if needed remove them all: aptitude search '?and( ?automatic(?reverse-recommends(?installed)), ?not(?automatic(?reverse-depends(?installed))) )' | awk '{ print $3 }' | xargs dpkg -P Here are some commands to sort files by size: du -h | grep ^[0-9.]*M | sort -rn du -h | grep ^[0-9.]*G | sort -rn [1]: https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=7435ae6b8212 --- License: All the text on this website is free as in freedom unless stated otherwise. This means you can use it in any way you want, you can copy it, change it the way you like and republish it, as long as you release the (modified) content under the same license to give others the same freedoms you've got and place my name and a link to this site with the article as source. This site uses Google Analytics for statistics and Google Adwords for advertisements. You are tracked and Google knows everything about you. Use an adblocker like ublock-origin if you don't want it. All the code on this website is licensed under the GNU GPL v3 license unless already licensed under a license which does not allows this form of licensing or if another license is stated on that page / in that software: This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see . Just to be clear, the information on this website is for meant for educational purposes and you use it at your own risk. I do not take responsibility if you screw something up. Use common sense, do not 'rm -rf /' as root for example. If you have any questions then do not hesitate to contact me. See https://raymii.org/s/static/About.html for details.