Safe to delete old files in /usr/lib?

[Polytropon]

On Mon, 4 Jan 2016 19:18:02 +0100, Markus Edemalm wrote:
> > 4 jan. 2016 kl. 18:52 skrev Polytropon <freebsd at edvax.de>:
> > 
> > On Mon, 4 Jan 2016 18:28:14 +0100, Markus Edemalm wrote:
> >>> 4 jan. 2016 kl. 18:12 skrev Polytropon <freebsd at edvax.de>:
> >>> 
> >>> On Mon, 4 Jan 2016 18:06:00 +0100, Markus Edemalm wrote:
> >>>> Hello,
> >>>> 
> >>>> My system was first installed as 10.0-RELEASE. I have since upgraded to 10.1, 10.1-STABLE, 10.2-RELEASE and is now at 10.2-RELEASE-p8.
> >>>> I’ve rebuild from source and followed the steps in the handbook. Everything is fine… but:
> >>>> 
> >>>> I see many files in /usr/lib with old dates, apparently they are no longer installed during upgrades.
> >>>> 
> >>>> My /etc/make.conf looks like this:
> >>>> 
> >>>> NO_PROFILE=true
> >>>> WITHOUT_X11=yes
> >>>> 
> >>>> Today, January the 4th, I upgraded to -p8. The newly installed files has todays date, i.e ”Jan  4”.
> >>>> If I do:
> >>>> 
> >>>> ls -lF /usr/lib | grep -v 'Jan  4' | awk {'print $9'}
> >>>> 
> >>>> …I get the following list of (obsolete?) files and folders with older dates.
> >>>> 
> >>>> aout/
> >>>> compat/
> >>>> libBlocksRuntime.a
> >>>> libalias.a
> >>>> libalias_cuseeme.a
> >> 
> >> [long list cut]
> >> 
> >>>> liby.a
> >>>> libypclnt.a
> >>>> libz.a
> >>>> libzfs.a
> >>>> libzfs_core.a
> >>>> libzpool.a
> >>>> 
> >>>> Would it be safe to delete them?
> >>> 
> >>> If you install from source, use the following targets:
> >>> 
> >>> # check-old           - List obsolete directories/files/libraries.
> >>> # check-old-dirs      - List obsolete directories.
> >>> # check-old-files     - List obsolete files.
> >>> # check-old-libs      - List obsolete libraries.
> >> 
> >> Sorry, no files in /usr/lib comes up. Just a few others I know about.
> >> 
> >>> And then:
> >>> 
> >>> # delete-old          - Delete obsolete directories/files/libraries.
> >>> # delete-old-dirs     - Delete obsolete directories.
> >>> # delete-old-files    - Delete obsolete files.
> >>> # delete-old-libs     - Delete obsolete libraries.
> >>> 
> >>> See the comment header of /usr/src/Makefile for more information
> >>> (and how those targets fit the recommended updating procedure,
> >>> listed a few lines later).
> >>> 
> >>> Generally speaking: As long as no program is linked against those
> >>> files, and no program requires them, they can be deleted. This
> >>> statement highly depends on which programs you have installed
> >>> and what they are linked against. :-)
> >> 
> >> Thank you. Still wonder why they are so many and where the came from in the first place.
> > 
> > They have been installed by the OS (from the initial installation
> > media or subsequent update processes), as the /usr/lib directory
> > is reserved for OS files (like /usr/local/lib is for 3rd party
> > libraries).
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >> And, they are all .a files, except for libc++.so and libc.so.
> >> 
> >> I added NO_PROFILE=true to /etc/make.conf a while back. Is that relevant?
> > 
> > Hmmm... I always thought that would be the default (no profiling libs
> > being built and installed). But according to "man src.conf", the
> > setting's name is WITHOUT_PROFILE, not NO_PROFILE.
> 
> Hmm. I forgot about src.conf, I got:
> 
> cat /etc/src.conf 
> WITHOUT_BLUETOOTH=yes
> WITHOUT_FLOPPY=yes
> WITHOUT_IPFW=yes
> WITHOUT_IPFILTER=yes
> 
> That may explain why _some_ libs are not being built and installed.
> But still, more than 100 .a files with old dates. Doesn’t make sense to me at all.

In this case, a good idea would be to move the old libraries out
of /usr/lib (for example into a newly created /usr/lib.old directory)
and checking if any application in use produces an error. In that
case, the required library could be restored. If no further error
appears - forget about those libraries. :-)



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...