Garbage collection of installed packages

[Randy Pratt]

On Mon, 26 Apr 2004 14:14:18 +0300 (EEST)
Jari Kirma <kirma at cs.hut.fi> wrote:

> 
> I have been observing how over long time, fbsd systems tend to gain
> packages that have been installed as a dependency of some other package,
> but later the original dependency leading to their installation has either
> changed to something else or disappeared completely, leaving package
> that's never explicitly installed nor required by any other package. So,
> my question is, is there an easy way to recognise these "garbage"
> packages?
> 
> Only obvious way to do this, at least that I've thought of, would be to
> have "explicitly required" flag in the package, or a dependency on a
> special package which would contain all potentially top-level packages.
> Problem with this, and all scenarios is that packages that would have
> installed as "explicitly requred" (not as a dependency of some other
> package) can be used, for instance by developers, without flagging them
> explicitly required after all. Anyway, a suggestion more informed hint
> about which installed packages are actually garbage, would be nice. (In
> above scenario, such packages would be ones without explicitly required
> flag and without any other packages requiring them.)

Sounds like you're describing sysutils/pkg_cutleaves .  Here's its
description:

"pkg_cutleaves finds installed 'leaf' packages, i.e. packages that are
not referenced by any other installed package, and lets you decide for
each one if you want to keep or deinstall it (via pkg_deinstall(1))."

Randy