Cleaning up a symbolics

["John C. Mallery" <JCMA@REAGAN.AI.MIT.EDU>]

    Date: Wed, 10 Jan 90 10:44 CST
    From: Cohen@MCC.COM (Richard M. Cohen)

	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

Before you do this, look at the reference dates for the files.  That's a
pretty reliable indicator of what is in use.

I have a tool you could use to GC unused directories from you LMFS.