Eclean

is Article description::a tool for cleaning repository source files and binary packages. It is part of the package and maintained by the Portage-Tools project.

Also available on Gentoo is the package (available separately from the  tools installed with gentoolkit) which is used to automate the clean up of old Linux kernels. See post-installation for usage instruction.

Emerge
Install :

Usage
By default, source files are located in the directory, while binary packages are located in the  directory. The locations for each can be changed by altering the DISTDIR and the PKGDIR variables respectively in. Both locations can grow quite big if not periodically cleaned; this is the reason was created.

Invocation
Use to see full action summary, options list, and usage breakdown:

Cleaning distfiles
Clean the source files directory by passing the  argument:

Or by running the short option:

Cleaning packages
For the directory with the binary packages use the following command instead:

Or by running the short option:

Options
By default, source files and binary packages corresponding to any ebuild in the current repository will not be deleted. This way, system administrators can easily downgrade a package or install a previously removed package, provided the package is still in the current repository tree.

As an example, suppose packages foo-1.0 and foo-1.1 are both in the repository. After updating from foo-1.0 to foo-1.1, run : source files for both versions will be kept, so if a problem occurs with foo-1.1 then the user can easily re-install foo-1.0 without re-downloading anything.

The other possible case is installing a previously removed package. Suppose that a package foo (any version) is installed on the system. After (inadvertently) removing it and running, the source files for foo will be kept, so it can be re-installed without re-downloading anything.

The same examples also apply for binary packages.

To save more disk space, add the  option: every source file or binary package that does not correspond to some currently installed package (version does matter) will be deleted. Please notice that this way users will not be protected in case they need to downgrade a package or re-install a previously removed package.

As an alternative, use both the  and the   options: every source file or binary package that does not correspond to some currently installed package (version does not matter) will be deleted. This still will not protect in case a re-install of a previously removed package is needed, but it will protect the sources if the package needs to be downgraded later.

For more details read the eclean(1) man page:

Cleaning leaves some distfiles
Problem: when trying to clean distfiles, some distfiles are not removed and the message "The following unavailable installed packages were found" is displayed. For example:

This situation occurs when a package's ebuild has been removed from the Gentoo ebuild repository and the package is currently installed on the system. Generally if the listed packages/distfiles are no longer needed; the reason they are not being removed is because they are listed in Portage's world file.

The solution is to to remove the packages from the world file, or remove the specific package atom(s) via:

Then re-run again in order to remove the distfiles.