Cleaning Up After "apt-get remove"

By default "apt-get remove package" doesn't purge everything related to the package. This eventually means that a log of configuration files are left scattered around the place with no corresponding packages. A couple of weeks ago, the following solution was proposed on #linux:

dpkg --purge `dpkg --get-selections | grep deinstall | cut -f1`

This is good for cleaning up after the fact, but is also possible to get apt to purge configuration files automatically. To accomplish this put the following in /etc/apt/apt.conf:

    APT
    {

Get
{
    Purge "true";
}

}

This will cause apt-get to automatically purge the configuration files every time you do "apt-get remove"