system-cleaner-gtk should just have an option to show obselete packages

The GTK user interface actually does attempt to do that: it shows you a list of all the things it wants to do and lets the user decide to ignore some of the stuff. The user can also not click the "Cleanup" button. Thus, to see the obsolete packages, they can start system-cleaner-gtk, and click on "Close".

It seems though that this is not enough. I'm happy to discuss improvements: do you have a suggestion for how to improve things? Would it be good if the program would ask for a confirmation after the user clicks on the "Cleanup" button?

Hi Lars,
  What I would have like to have is an option so I can choose to know which packages have been deprecated as sometimes it may take some time for the new packages for arrive or they wouldn't be a new package.

So a drop-down configuration which by default doesn't put on click. This way users automatically don't click on the cleanup.

My own use-case

I like the option having atleast couple of kernels just in case the new upgraded kernel doesn't work. or stuff like that. While I was looking at the last cruft change, accidentally I removed my beloved kernel and because its no longer in the archive, can't get it back.

So how it should work is that have an configuration option so people can opt just to see deprecated packages without the packages removal being in the checked state.

what it also would mean is that even if the cleanup button is applied it wouldn't hurt or do anything.

Comments and additions to the same are welcome.

I consider the "are you sure?" dialog window to be a sufficient fix for this problem.

Accepted into intrepid-proposed, please test and give feedback here. Please see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Thank you in advance!

This bug was fixed in the package system-cleaner - 1.10.4-0ubuntu2

---------------
system-cleaner (1.10.4-0ubuntu2) intrepid-proposed; urgency=low

  * The "viime tingan pakettilisäykset ovat huono idea" release.
  * Added Polish translation from Piotr Makowski. (LP: #290196)
  * The apt Packages list is now checked for sanity. (LP: #290024)
  * Icon is now shown in menu, and by the window manager.
    (LP: #274714)
  * The current kernel will now never be considered cruft.
    (LP: #285657)
  * Now asks user to confirm that they want to remove packages or remove
    other cruft. (LP: #285888)
  * Package short description is now shown in the user interface.
    (LP: #286394)
  * The GTK UI now shows column headers, so that it is clear what the
    tick column means. (No bug reported about this explicitly, but it
    has come up repeatedly.)
  * Support for whitelists in /etc/cruft-remover.d/*.whitelist added.
    See the cruft-remover(8) manual page for details. This can later be
    seeded with the most common third-party packages, until dpkg+apt
    get sufficient meta data to deal with this in a better way.
    (Does not quite close LP: 285746.)

 -- Lars Wirzenius <email address hidden> Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:58:25 +0200

Copied intrepid-proposed update to jaunty.