Auto removable packages[SOLVED]

[Cariboo]

Hello,
I have LM 14 Nadia installed and I would like to know what to do with
Installed (auto removable) packages.
As I'm not a programmer I wonder what are those used for?
Could I free some space on my HDD when I uninstall them?

[meteorrock]

First, you can do an 'appitude' to list all of your packages you got installed. I prefer appitude as it is has a better handle on packages you want to look over that are installed, compared to apt-get. Just run this command in the terminal to bring up the list of packages you have installed to review them.

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aptitude search '?installed ?not(?automatic)'

This will bring up manually downloaded packages you installed through the apt-get for example. For automatic updates, just leave out the < ?not > syntax variable like this.

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aptitude search '?installed (?automatic)'

This will list your automatic package installs. Then you can just purge them through the apt-get if you want to remove ALL of the package along with its included files, or just do an autoremove to remove just the package itself without the binary.

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sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get autoremove [package]

Or to fully purge the package along with its binary files,

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sudo apt-get purge [package]

Make sure its not a file or package you need for your linux mint build, or you will hose it out.

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Take the package name and do a google search on it and see if its needed. The above code will give you a detailed description in your terminal for its use. Make sure you know if its essential to your system through research first. Manual installs are usually safer to purge without much issue.

[Cariboo]

Hello and thanks for the help. It's a bit confusing how many packages there are installed.
I'm not able to determine which are needed.
The command

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aptitude search '?installed (?automatic)'

listed, among others, all the packages which are listed in Synaptic Package Manager under

STATUS - Installed (auto removable)

too. I wonder if I can just mark them there

For Complete Removal

and remove them that way
or do I still have to go and do a google search on each and see if it's needed?

[meteorrock]

I would do a search. If your unfamiliar with what packages you need for your linux mint build, you could hose it out. It only takes a few seconds and you also gain knowledge on what the package does for your system, if appicable, for further reference to yourself in the future.

Taking any kind of shortcut on linux to save time is a sure way to get into trouble and having to reinstall the whole OS. This is from personal experience for myself and others.

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Linux packages do not take up much memory space. If you are short on hard disk space, you should try to delete any multimedia files on your system. Things like video clips and such. Going into the system packages to try to delete things is going to get you into trouble.

Make sure you do an "apt-get autoremove" in your terminal to delete packages that are no longer needed by your system is another good place to start.

[Cariboo]

Thanks meteorrock for your advice and wisdom....
You recommended

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apt-get autoremove

and this did exactly what I thought would clear out the "autoremovable packages".
Issue solved.