Debian – How to find files in a Debian system not installed or created by dpkg

aptdebiandpkgfinduninstall

I've installed some things manually in the past and would like to weed out all related files. So, I need a way to automatically find all the files (in /usr, for example) that are not included in any of the packages currently installed on the Debian system. However, I would also need to filter out the files that are created during package installation (by dpkg post-install scripts and similar things).

Best Answer

Use the cruft package:

cruft is a program to look over the system for anything that shouldn't be there, but is; or for anything that should be there, but isn't.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to remove the “installed manually” flag and revert to “automatically installed” with apt-get

Aptitude can help you when you initially install the package:

aptitude install "zlib1g-dev&M"

Or, after your have installed the package:

aptitude markauto "zlib1g"

Edit: If you do not have aptitude, you can use

apt-mark auto zlib1g-dev

APT – How to Show Actions of Installing a .deb Package

You can print the control file and some other information with dpkg -I package.deb, or use dpkg -e package.deb to extract only the control information files.

Also, you can do a dry run to see what dpkg would do with --dry-run:

dpkg --dry-run -i package.deb

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to remove the “installed manually” flag and revert to “automatically installed” with apt-get

APT – How to Show Actions of Installing a .deb Package

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