DEBORPHAN(1)						      General Commands Manual						      DEBORPHAN(1)

NAME

       deborphan - Orphaned package finder

SYNOPSIS

       deborphan [OPTION]... [PACKAGE]...

DESCRIPTION

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

       If it is invoked with an optional list of packages, only the dependencies on those packages will be checked. The  results  are  printed	to
       stdout  as  if the option --show-deps had been given. Searching for specific packages will show the package, regardless of its priority. It
       is possible to specify -, to read a list of packages from standard input.

OPTIONS

       -f, --status-file=FILE
	      Use FILE as the status file.

       -h, --help
	      Display a short help message and exit.

       -v, --version
	      Display version information and exit.

   OUTPUT MODIFIERS
       -d, --show-deps
	      Show a list of all installed packages and name the packages that depend on them.

       -P, --show-priority
	      Show the priority of the packages found.

       -s, --show-section
	      Show the sections the packages are in.

       --no-show-section
	      Override showing sections when the default is to show them (see --all-packages).

       -z, --show-size
	      Show the installed size of the packages found.

   SEARCH MODIFIERS
       -a, --all-packages
	      Check all the packages, instead of only those in the libs section. Best used (if at all used) in combination with  --priority.  This
	      option implies --show-section.

       -e, --exclude=LIST
	      Excludes the packages named in LIST (a comma separated list) from the evaluation as if they didn't exist in the status file.

       -H, --force-hold
	      Ignore "hold" dpkg-flags on packages and thus display these packages. Without this option packages with the "hold" flag set will not
	      be displayed. Please refer to dpkg(1) for more information about package flags. Due a bug in  aptitude  (Debian  bug  #137771)  hold
	      flags created by aptitude are ignored by deborphan.

       --ignore-suggests
       --ignore-recommends
	      Do  not  check if there is a package `suggesting' (--ignore-suggests) or `recommending' (--ignore-recommends) the package. When both
	      options are used together, deborphan behaves as if the `nice-mode' mentioned below has been turned off.

       -n, --nice-mode
	      Turn off nice-mode.  Nice-mode checks if there is a package `suggesting' or `recommending' the package.  If one is found, the  pack-
	      age  will be marked as in use, or, when --show-deps is used, print out the package suggesting the package as if it were depending on
	      it.

       -p, --priority=PRIORITY
	      Show only those packages with a priority equal to, or greater than PRIORITY. PRIORITY may  be  in  the  range  of  1-5,  or  one	of
	      required, important, standard, optional, extra. Default value for PRIORITY is 2 (important).

       --find-config
	      This option searches for uninstalled packages which still have configuration files on the system.  It implies the -a option.

       --libdevel
	      Search in section libdevel in addition to libs and oldlibs.

   KEEP FILE MANAGEMENT
       -A, --add-keep PKG1...PKGn
	      Add  packages to the list of packages which are never to be reported, regardless of their state. You may specify '-' to use standard
	      input. Note that package names are case-sensitive.

       -k, --keep-file=FILE
	      Use FILE to store the list of kept-back packages.

       -L, --list-keep
	      Show the list of packages that are being kept back.

       -R, --del-keep PKG1...PKGn
	      Remove packages from the list of packages which are never to be reported.  You may specify '-' to use standard input.  If there  are
	      no dependencies for this package next time deborphan is invoked, it will be reported again.

       -Z, --zero-keep
	      Purge the entire list of packages that are being kept back. The only option possible in combination with this option is -A.

   GUESSING
       --guess-*
       --no-guess-*
	      deborphan  can  try to guess what packages may not be of much use to you by examining the package's name and/or description. It will
	      pretend the package is in the main/libs section, and report it as if it were a library. This method is in no  way  perfect  or  even
	      reliable,  so  beware  when  using  this! It is also possible to tell deborphan e.g. to guess all interpreters but not Perl by using
	      --guess-interpreters --no-guess-perl or to guess all but not Mono  by  using  --guess-all  --no-guess-mono.  Please  note  that  the
	      --no-guess-  option  must occur after the --guess- option it modifies, this makes it possible to declare more complex things like to
	      guess all, except interpreters but additionally try to guess perl.

       The following options are to be prefixed by --guess- or (except only) by --no-guess-:

       common This option tries to find common packages, i.e. packages with names ending in -common.

       data   This option tries to find data packages, i.e. packages with names ending in -data.

       debug  This option tries to find debugging libraries, i.e. packages with names ending in -dbg.

       dev    This option tries to find development packages, i.e. packages with names ending in -dev.	Also see option --libdevel.

       doc    This option tries to find documentation packages, i.e. packages with names ending in -doc.

       dummy  This option tries to find dummy packages, i.e. packages with dummy or transitional in their short description.

       kernel This option tries to find kernel-modules. It tries to match (-modules|^nvidia-kernel)-.*[0-9]+.[0-9]+.[0-9]+.

       interpreters
	      Try to find all interpreter modules (i.e. imply ruby, pike, python, perl and mono).

       mono   This option tries to find mono libraries. It tries to match ^libmono.

       perl   This option tries to find perl modules. It tries to match ^lib.*-perl$.

       pike   This option tries to find pike modules. It tries to match ^pike[[:digit:]]*-.

       python This option tries to find python modules. It tries to match ^python[[:digit:]]*-.

       ruby   This option tries to find ruby modules. It tries to match ^lib.*-ruby[[:digit:].]*$.

       section
	      This option tries to find libraries that were accidentally placed in the wrong section. It tries to match ^lib, but not if  it  ends
	      in one of: -dbg, -doc, -perl, or -dev.

       all    Try all of the above.

       only   Ignore  the  package's section completely, and just go for the name and/or description. This option must be used in conjunction with
	      one or more of the --guess options listed above, or deborphan will not display anything.

FILES

       /var/lib/dpkg/status
	      Statuses of available packages. See the section INFORMATION ABOUT PACKAGES in dpkg's man-page for more information.

       /var/lib/deborphan/keep
	      A newline-separated list of packages to keep. Package names are in no particular order.

SEE ALSO

       dpkg(8), dselect(8), orphaner(8), editkeep(8), cruft(8), xargs(1)

BUGS

       If you report a bug, please include your /var/lib/dpkg/status file.  That would help in reproducing the bugs.

AUTHORS

       deborphan was written by Cris van Pelt <"Cris van Pelt"@tribe.eu.org>, then maintained by Peter Palfrader <weasel@debian.org> but is  nowa-
       days maintained Carsten Hey <c.hey@web.de>

deborphan							   February 2009						      DEBORPHAN(1)