APT: pattern matching with aptitude?

[Tom Metro]

Kristian Hermansen wrote:
> I thought I would clean up my installation and remove any unnecessary
> packages I might have accrued over time.
> And does anyone have other suggestions or warnings?

You might also want to run deborphan(1):

   DESCRIPTION
     deborphan  finds  packages  that have no packages depending on them.
     The default operation is to search only within the libs and oldlibs
     sections to hunt down unused libraries.

I ran it after a recent upgrade to Etch and got rid of 6 or 8 unused 
libraries. It has a pile of options for going beyond libraries, but 
first try the -a switch, which list everything without dependencies, 
from which you can pick off packages you don't use.

  -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/

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