safe to use "apt purge '~o'" after upgrade?

O

olivluca

New Member
Nov 26, 2024
10
2
3
The standard debian upgrade procedure recommends to purge obsolete packages after a dist-upgrade, but the proxmox upgrade guide doesn't. Is it safe?
Some are old libraries, some are old kernels and both mime-support and spl are dummy/transitional packages, so it should be safe to remove them but I prefer to ask before pulling the trigger.

This is the output of "apt list '~o'"


Code: 
libaio1/now 0.3.113-4 amd64 [installed,local]
libapt-pkg6.0/now 2.6.1 amd64 [installed,local]
libassuan0/now 2.5.5-5 amd64 [installed,local]
libcbor0.8/now 0.8.0-2+b1 amd64 [installed,local]
libflac12/now 1.4.2+ds-2 amd64 [installed,local]
libfmt9/now 9.1.0+ds1-2 amd64 [installed,local]
libfuse3-3/now 3.14.0-4 amd64 [installed,local]
libglusterd0/now 10.3-5 amd64 [installed,local]
libicu72/now 72.1-3+deb12u1 amd64 [installed,local]
libldap-2.5-0/now 2.5.13+dfsg-5 amd64 [installed,local]
libpcre3/now 2:8.39-15 amd64 [installed,local]
libperl5.36/now 5.36.0-7+deb12u3 amd64 [installed,local]
libpython3.11-minimal/now 3.11.2-6+deb12u6 amd64 [installed,local]
libpython3.11-stdlib/now 3.11.2-6+deb12u6 amd64 [installed,local]
libsubid4/now 1:4.13+dfsg1-1+deb12u2 amd64 [installed,local]
libthrift-0.17.0/now 0.17.0-2+b2 amd64 [installed,local]
libunistring2/now 1.0-2 amd64 [installed,local]
mime-support/now 3.66 all [installed,local]
perl-modules-5.36/now 5.36.0-7+deb12u3 all [installed,local]
proxmox-kernel-6.8.12-14-pve-signed/now 6.8.12-14 amd64 [installed,local]
proxmox-kernel-6.8.12-15-pve-signed/now 6.8.12-15 amd64 [installed,local]
proxmox-kernel-6.8.12-16-pve-signed/now 6.8.12-16 amd64 [installed,local]
proxmox-kernel-6.8.12-17-pve-signed/now 6.8.12-17 amd64 [installed,local]
proxmox-kernel-6.8.12-18-pve-signed/now 6.8.12-18 amd64 [installed,local]
proxmox-kernel-6.8.4-2-pve-signed/now 6.8.4-2 amd64 [installed,local]
proxmox-kernel-6.8/now 6.8.12-18 all [installed,local]
python3-pysimplesoap/now 1.16.2-5 all [installed,local]
python3.11-minimal/now 3.11.2-6+deb12u6 amd64 [installed,local]
python3.11/now 3.11.2-6+deb12u6 amd64 [installed,local]
spl/now 2.2.9-pve1 all [installed,local]
 
Last edited:
I regularly run apt autoremove --purge without any issues after every (minor) update and it does also remove older kernels.

EDIT: I've done this for years and on many versions, and I seem to have much less problems with my Proxmox setups than most people here.

EDIT2: Sorry, I did not know about '~o' and cannot share experience on that in particular. Please ignore this reply.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: UdoB
Yes, but apt autoremove --purge (which is something that I run regularly on my laptopt and debian VMs/containers) is one thing but apt purge "~o" is another.
In this case the former would only remove the old kernels, while the latter would remove the packages I put in the original message.
 
Sorry, I did not know about '~o' but I found this on this forum which indicates to me that it's probably safe, as nothing depends on them since you cannot install those packages anymore:
S

[SOLVED] Thread 'Is it safe to remove obsolete packages after upgrade to PVE 8.0?'

I just upgraded from PVE 7.4 to PVE 8.0 without any issues.

After the upgrade, I noticed that I now have the following obsolete packages still installed:
Code: 
pve:~# apt list ?obsolete
Listing... Done
gcc-10-base/now 10.2.1-6 amd64 [installed,local]
gcc-9-base/now 9.3.0-22 amd64 [installed,local]
libbpf0/now 1:0.3-2 amd64 [installed,local]
libcbor0/now 0.5.0+dfsg-2 amd64 [installed,local]
libdns-export1110/now 1:9.11.19+dfsg-2.1 amd64 [installed,local]
libffi7/now 3.3-6 amd64 [installed,local]
libflac8/now 1.3.3-2+deb11u1 amd64 [installed,local]
libicu67/now 67.1-7 amd64 [installed,local]...

EDIT: Just ran this on a PVE 9 that was upgraded from PVE 8 and it purged a similar list of packages. It reboots and appears to runs fine.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: olivluca
No need to be sorry and thank you. In fact, since I was pretty sure somebody asked a similar question before, I searched the forum first for "apt purge '~o'" (which complained that it wouldn't search for "o" since it's too short) and then for obsolete (I think) and I didn't come up with that message.
 
  • Like
Reactions: leesteken
No problem. Just ran this on several (backed up) Debian containers (including PBS) that were upgraded from Debian 11 and this clean up a lot of old packages (100MB) like gcc-8/9-base. Thank you for informing me about this. I think it should be included in Proxmox upgrade guides.

EDIT: It does not have much effect on Ubuntu or Mint (and LMDE), which probably do this during the (graphical) upgrade process.
 
Last edited:
Doing that on a container is safer: just take a snapshot and rollback in case of problems, but doing it on proxmox itself it's (potentially) more dangerous. Anyway, it works fine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom