The last time I followed a distribution’s suggestion to remove some packages that were no longer needed, I completely hosed the system. Could not use it afterwards. Though the machine was a test machine, the experience thought me to always let sleeping dogs lie.
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lozz
12 years 43 weeks 1 day 8 hours ago
GUI alternative
Yeah, its always wise to treat so-called orphaned packages with a great deal of caution.
I use Synaptic Package Manager to test this. In the "status" section is a heading "Installed(local or obselete)" which are usually orphaned packages.
I right-click on these to mark them for "removal" or "complete removal".
If I don't get any additional response, then it's all right to continue.
However, if a little box springs up with something like, "Also to be removed:
Libreoffice
GNOME Desktop
Linux Kernel xxxx"
it's immediately apparent that this is a package with some pretty serious dependencies, so I click "Cancel" rather than "OK".