Cleaning up a symbolics

["Richard M. Cohen" <Cohen@MCC.COM>]

    Date: Wed, 10 Jan 90 08:48:44 MST
    From: intvax!gnome!drstrip@unmvax.cs.unm.edu (David R. Strip)

    I have inherited several symbolics machines which have been
    less than ideally managed over the years. There are many bogus
    (though apparently harmless) entries in the namespace as well
    as pointless .system entries in >sys>site. Is there any handy
    way to clean out this sort of nonsense? Are there other places
    to look for junk that needs to be cleaned out? I am a little
    reluctant to adopt a tabula rasa (clean slate) approach, but
    I suppose that's always the alternative, at least as far as the
    local LMFS goes, but a little too much as far as the namespace goes.
    Strip

Here's a good technique for cleaning up unneeded files from your
SYS:SITE directory:

	(1) Rename the existing directory (e.g., to >sys>old-site>)
	(2) Rename the .SYSTEM and .TRANSLATIONS files that you
	    know are needed into the new >sys>site> directory.
	(3) Tell your users to move anything they know to be needed.
	(4) Move additional files as you encounter problems.
	(5) After some months you can review the files left in old-site,
	    and delete ones that are deemed unneeded.  (Or, if you have
	    enough disk space, you can leave the old files around, but
	    not cluttering up SYS:SITE.)

-- Rich