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Asked: 2021-05-27 12:10:22 +0800 CST

Ubuntu MATE 21.04: is it safe to remove Debian keyring GPG files?

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I just noticed that, there are alot of Debian keyring GPG files inside /usr/share/keyrings/ directory of my Ubuntu MATE 21.04 installation (which have been upgraded from previous versions regularly).

$ ls -lsh /usr/share/keyrings/
total 32M
 12K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8.5K Mar 26 16:41 debian-archive-bullseye-automatic.gpg
 12K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8.6K Mar 26 16:41 debian-archive-bullseye-security-automatic.gpg
4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.4K Mar 26 16:41 debian-archive-bullseye-stable.gpg
8.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8.0K Mar 26 16:41 debian-archive-buster-automatic.gpg
8.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8.0K Mar 26 16:41 debian-archive-buster-security-automatic.gpg
4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.3K Mar 26 16:41 debian-archive-buster-stable.gpg
 56K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root  55K Mar 26 16:41 debian-archive-keyring.gpg
 40K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root  37K Mar 26 16:41 debian-archive-removed-keys.gpg
8.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7.3K Mar 26 16:41 debian-archive-stretch-automatic.gpg
8.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7.3K Mar 26 16:41 debian-archive-stretch-security-automatic.gpg
4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.3K Mar 26 16:41 debian-archive-stretch-stable.gpg
 28M -rw-r--r-- 1 root root  28M Mar 25 02:40 debian-keyring.gpg
2.6M -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.6M Mar 25 02:40 debian-maintainers.gpg
772K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 771K Mar 25 02:40 debian-nonupload.gpg
 28K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root  26K Mar 25 02:40 debian-role-keys.gpg

4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.3K May 11 15:49 ubuntu-advantage-cis.gpg
4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.2K May 11 15:49 ubuntu-advantage-esm-apps.gpg
4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.3K May 11 15:49 ubuntu-advantage-esm-infra-trusty.gpg
4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.3K May 11 15:49 ubuntu-advantage-fips.gpg
8.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7.3K Sep 18  2018 ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg
8.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6.6K Oct 27  2016 ubuntu-archive-removed-keys.gpg
4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3.0K Mar 27 05:04 ubuntu-cloudimage-keyring.gpg
   0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root    0 Jan 17  2018 ubuntu-cloudimage-removed-keys.gpg
4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.2K May 27  2010 ubuntu-master-keyring.gpg
$

When I compared this with a fresh, virtual installation of Ubuntu MATE 21.04, it only had Ubuntu keyring files.

So, is it safe to remove those Debian keyring files? Thanks.

Edit-1:

dpkg -S /usr/share/keyrings/debian-* | awk -F: '{print $1}' | sort -u

debian-archive-keyring
debian-keyring

aptitude why debian-archive-keyring

i   packaging-dev    Recommends ubuntu-dev-tools      
i A ubuntu-dev-tools Recommends debian-archive-keyring

aptitude why debian-keyring

i   packaging-dev    Recommends ubuntu-dev-tools
i A ubuntu-dev-tools Recommends debian-keyring
ubuntu-mate

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Direct removal of files is a bad idea.

    You can remove their packages - find them by

    dpkg -S '/usr/share/keyrings/debian-*' | awk -F: '{print $1}' | sort -u

    and then remove by

    sudo apt-get purge $(dpkg -S '/usr/share/keyrings/debian-*' | awk -F: '{print $1}' | sort -u)

    For example on my 18.04 LTS I see two packages debian-archive-keyring and debian-keyring. Aptitude says that they were installed as recommendations:

    $ aptitude why debian-archive-keyring
i   bikeshed         Recommends ubuntu-dev-tools      
i A ubuntu-dev-tools Recommends debian-archive-keyring

$ aptitude why debian-keyring 
i   bikeshed         Recommends ubuntu-dev-tools
i A ubuntu-dev-tools Recommends debian-keyring

    You can try to execute all above commands on your machine and then decide.

    For my machine it is safe to remove these keyrings, I'll save about 35,6 MB.

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