When we install a package in most of Linux distributions, the package system installs other packages needed by the package that we are installing. If we uninstall the package, its dependencies might not be uninstalled, these unused dependencies are called orphaned packages.

Let’s see how to remove orphaned packages.

Archlinux

pacman -Rsn $(pacman -Qdtq)

How does the command work?

  • pacman -Qdt list all orphaned packages

  • pacman -Rsn uninstall the listed packages

Debian

apt-get remove --purge $(deborphan)