this post was submitted on 03 May 2025
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I noticed while updating my system just how many packages I have installed that I don't recognize.

I tend to think that minimalism is better for security, so I'd like to remove any packages that I'm not using, but this is a bit of a scary task.

Does anybody have a safe method for reviewing and purging unused or bloat packages while obviously making sure not to accidentally remove important dependencies?

I'm on arch btw.

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[–] cravl@slrpnk.net 8 points 1 month ago (3 children)

For anyone reading this on a Debian-based system, you can get a good start without risking removing anything important like this:

  1. Run apt-mark showmanual, and copy any package names you don't think you need into a list.
  2. Run apt-mark auto <pkg1> <pkg2> ...
  3. Run apt autoremove
[–] pathos@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Sorry, just to clarify, <pkg1> etc. will be the ones deleted or not deleted?

[–] greywolf0x1@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month ago

Those will be deleted as they were picked with the second command

[–] cravl@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 month ago

Like @pathos said, that's the list from the previous step. Because you're autoremoving, it will only remove packages that aren't dependencies of any other packages still installed.