Using Bleachbit CAN do damage!

[GeneC]

I am new a Linux (about 7 months). I had always used Bleachbit to keep my system clean after large updates. I had read on this forum, where it could do harm if not used cautiously. I thought I was. I did not enable some options that warned caution.




After hundreds of uses I had no trouble, until TODAY.

I always use the "Preview" mode to show just what is to be cleaned, and all looked ok, BUT a little bit after cleaning, I noticed that all the Libre Office icons were gone from Mint Menu. Sure enough all of Libre Office and also Evolution mail were GONE! Nowhere on the system.

It was easy enough to reinstall, and all was back to normal, as the config files must have remained behind. All except for Evolution Mail. All my mail was gone. I had a backup from a month back, and restored that.


I want to keep my sytem clean, but am hesistant to use Bleachbit.

What are some terminal commands that I can use to keep this system clean?

[Missed]

I had a similar problem. Now I don't use it as "superuser".
Maybe not as efficient, but much safer!

[Silent Warrior]

GeneC: In my opinion, terminal commands don't give as much control as Synaptic, so I suggest you just use Synaptic for updating - and checking what ends up in the auto-removable/local or obsolete categories under Status, Completely Removing what isn't needed any more. The ABSOLUTELY MOST IMPORTANT PART, however, is to read the output as the packages are installed, as you will sometimes be informed that directory such-and-such couldn't be removed, configuration installed as [path].new, or even attempts to overwrite some files from another package. Depending on how much you install, you may also find several mysterious .-directories in your /home, but in my experience they're never very large. I maintain that Synaptic is a good enough tool for this.
This is the main problem with rolling releases - ArchLinux is extremely up-front about it. There's no shortcut to this, as far as I'm aware. I mean, as long as you can get the commandline operations to output a log, know how to pin packages, etc., I suppose that's as good as anything, and should be your go-to method, but there's no such thing as easy, carefree maintenance of a rolling release.

[DrHu]

I use Bleachbit all the time in both root and user mode, and have no problems

• Bleachbit also shows all the application selections it will be using in cleaning up applications
  --so that, it tells you for example, that deleting places, removes browser bookmarks (Firefox ..)

I forgot the actual item, that section refers to, as I am writing this from a library at the moment,and a windows OS

[GeneC]

Folks

Thanks for the feedback.

Just out of curiosity, today I ran my usual bleachbit routine again with no problems. It seems just a freak one-time thing. I will keep using it, but keep a closer look at the files to be deleted in the "preview" mode.
When the problem happened it was after a quite large update a few days ago.
Not that large a problem, and a 10 minute fix, but curious..