>> I suppose you and Jesus are right, but what about cruft removal? Are >> you saying Gentoo is 100% cruft-free? I've got a lot of junk in /etc >> and especially ~/.* >> > > No it isn't, but this is very hard to automate cruft detection via > scripts as you still have to decide yourself if a file is really needed > or not. > > It is very easy to compare all the files on the filesystem with the list > of files controlled by portage. But everything that is left over is not > cruft, because there are files you put somewhere yourself or files that > are not controlled by portage but are essential to the system. So you > have to use some kind of ignorelist to exclude files that are not under > portage control but needed. As you see it is still you who has to decide > if a file is cruft or not. > > I have done something minimalistic that evolved over time and that fits > my needs. I long refrained from attaching it here, but as this question > comes up so often I think I will share it. I am not a programming guru > so there might be bugs or other stuff done in a poor way so don't come > here and complain if the script has killed your kitten. > > I will attach the cruft script written in perl and as an example the > ignorelist I use for my system and the list of cruft files that remain > as false positives. You have to customize the ignorelist yourself so it > does a proper job on your system. I have tried to make the script user > friendly but it surly isn't so you may have to tinker with it a bit. The > script actually does not delete anything it just presents you a list of > files that contains all files on the filesystem minus the files > controlled by portage and minus the files you have ignored. > > > There is also another cruft script that you may get from overlays but I > don't remember where. If you search the archives you may find it as it > has already been mentioned here. > > Regards, > > Daniel
Thank you Daniel and Dale and everyone for their opinions regarding this. Adding a list of files tracked by portage to a list of files specified by me and reporting on the different sounds like a very useful thing to me. Daniel, can you remember anything else about that cruft script from an overlay? I can't seem to come up with it from Google. Writing an ebuild is best, but sometimes you just want to give a program a try without writing an ebuild (like everyone else running Linux does) and a scruft script enables you to do that without making a mess of your system. - Grant
