Even shorter: apt autopurge
Apropos to my recent message regarding system configuration, I keep a personal metapackage around that lists the packages I really want. About once a quarter I do the following (as root): # apt-mark showmanual | grep -v mrc-mars | xargs apt-mark auto # apt autopurge (Where mrc-mars is my top level metapackage. For *me*, that is the only manual package I ever want on a machine.) If I see something that it wants to purge but I do actually want, I add it to my personal metapackage (build and push) and then do the above again. mrc