CONFIGURATION
You can configure some default values at compile-time. Some of these may be overridden at run-time. See the list of C constants below for a detailed explanation of the options.
The configure options that do not take an argument (like --with-xalloc) can be set by using --without-var (e.g. --without-xalloc).
configure option C-constant override at runtime
--with-xalloc USE_XALLOC no
--with-nice DEFAULT_NICE yes
--with-priority=PRIOR DEFAULT_PRIORITY yes
--with-isfa ALL_PACKAGES_IMPLY_SECTION yes
STATUS_FILE yes
REG_FLAGS no
KEEPER_FILE yes
--without-debfoster IGNORE_DEBFOSTER yes
DEBFOSTER_KEEP no
--with-ignore-essential IGNORE_ESSENTIAL no
The following constants are defined at the bottom of config.h: STATUS_FILE - The location of your status file
(default: "/var/lib/dpkg/status") USE_XALLOC - Safe memory allocation. A little bit slower, and a whole
lot safer.
(default: 1)
DEFAULT_NICE - Count 'recommends' and 'suggests' as 'depends'. This
option can be overridden by passing the -n option to deborphan.
(default: 1)
DEFAULT_PRIORITY - The default priority to use when searching for packages.
See the manual page (under --priority) for more information
(default: 2)
REG_FLAGS - Bitwise or'd list of options to pass to regcomp(3). Unsetting
REG_ICASE will violate the dpkg standard, but is not likely
to cause problems. Note that REG_EXTENDED is hard-coded.
(default: REG_ICASE)
KEEPER_FILE - Location of the file to store information about kept back
packages. This can only be changed via src/Makefile.am.
(default: /var/lib/deborphan/keep)
ALL_PACKAGES_IMPLY_SECTION - Imply --show-section if --all-packages is used.
Shows in which sections the packages are. Can be
overridden with --no-show-section at runtime.
(default: 1)
IGNORE_DEBFOSTER - Ignore debfoster's keepers file by default.
(default: 0)
DEBFOSTER_KEEP - Location of debfoster's keepers file. Undefine to never
use debfoster's keepfile.
(default: configure)
IGNORE_ESSENTIAL - Ignore 'Essential: yes' lines in package information.
(default: 0)
To get deborphan to run faster, run configure with the following options: --without-nice --without-xalloc --with-priority=4 --without-isfa --with-bufsize=2000 --disable-nls --with-ignore-essential
INSTALLATION
Run the following commands:
./configure [your options]
make all
make install
TROUBLESHOOTING
If compilation fails on NLS (in po/ or intl/), try passing the --disable-nls option to configure. If you don't want to use the Dutch messages, supply --disable-nls for slightly faster operation.
REMOVING ALL SUGGESTED PACKAGES
deborphan -p4 | xargs apt-get -u remove Never run this command without looking at deborphan's output first!
If you decide you want to keep some packages use:
deborphan -A libfoo libbar lib...
deborphan -p4 | xargs apt-get -u remove
Next time you run deborphan, it will not display libfoo and libbar. See the manual page for more information.
BUGS
deborphan does not check for "or" dependencies, i.e. when a package depends on libfoo OR libbar, both libfoo and libbar will be marked as being in use. Unless someone comes up with a bit of code to do this really fast, it will never be implemented.
If you discover a new bug, send a message describing your problems, the output of deborphan, and your /var/lib/dpkg/status (if that is not too private information) to weasel@debian.org, or to the Debian BTS if you are using the Debian package.
COPYING
See the file COPYING provided in this package, or /usr/share/common-licenses/Artistic on a Debian system. Note that orphaner has a different license, see util/orphaner for details.
$Id: README 409 2004-04-21 12:20:43Z weasel $