[Deborphan-devel] Bug#703609: deborphan: please clarify the documentation (man page) about libs/oldlibs

[Vincent Lefevre]

Package: deborphan
Version: 1.7.28.8
Severity: normal

The deborphan man page says:

  DESCRIPTION
       deborphan  finds  packages that have no packages depending on them.
       The default operation is to search only within the libs and oldlibs
       sections to hunt down unused libraries.
                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

One has the impression that these packages just contain libraries
(and associated documentation files, but nothing else that would
affect the behavior of a running system). This is usually the case,
but some packages in these sections may also contain executables
(which the user or a 3rd-party application may use), so that it
may not be safe to remove them. So, this is a bit confusing.

The man page should say something like: Such packages may also
contain executables or plugins, not just libraries; the user
should check their contents before removing them.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 7.0
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 3.8-trunk-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=POSIX, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages deborphan depends on:
ii  libc6  2.13-38

Versions of packages deborphan recommends:
ii  apt           0.9.7.8
ii  dialog        1.1-20120215-3
ii  gettext-base  0.18.1.1-10

deborphan suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information