DH_GERMINATE_CLEAN(1)

📦
version 2.50.2+willsync2 · 7 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💅 dh_germinate_clean(1)

okay bestie, so this is a page from the Debhelper manual, and it's about a lil helper called dh_germinate_clean. she's niche but she's iconic, and she's about to make your source packages look tidy. ✨

🎀 NAME 🎀

dh_germinate_clean — the girl who cleans up all the files that germinate-update-metapackage left lying around. no cap, that's literally her whole job. 🧹💖

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

dh_germinate_clean [debhelper options]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so dh_germinate_clean is a debhelper program, which means she plays nice with the whole debhelper crew. what she does is clean up certain files that germinate-update-metapackage creates — and listen, those files are genuinely useful for debugging, they're not villains or anything. but they should not be appearing in source packages, and that's the vibe check they fail. 🙈

so she removes:

  • any *.old files that match defined seeds — and when we say "defined seeds" we mean the ones listed in the metapackage-map file, put there by a previous run of germinate-update-metapackage 👑
  • and also the debootstrap-dir file 💀 bye girl

that's it. that's the whole thing. she's efficient, she's clean, she ate. 💅

✨ EXAMPLES ✨

most of the time you don't even call her directly — she gets called indirectly in a rules file, via the dh command. like this:

%:
    dh $@ --with germinate
⚠️ heads up bestie: to use this form you must build-depend on at least debhelper (>= 7.0.8). and honestly, in any case, to use this program at all you must build-depend on at least germinate (>= 1.18). no shortcuts, that's the rule. 🔥

she can also be called directly in the clean target — any time before dh_clean, whenever you feel like it:

clean:
    dh_testdir
    dh_germinate_clean
    dh_clean

see how she shows up right before dh_clean? main character placement. 🫶

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

and also, fun fact: this program is a part of germinate. she belongs to something bigger. family. 🥹

💜 AUTHOR 💜

Colin Watson <cjwatson@ubuntu.com> — icon behavior, honestly. 💖

Copyright (C) 2009 Canonical Ltd., licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.

okay that's the whole page, you're officially germinate-pilled. go forth and have the cleanest source packages of your life, bestie. 🎀🦋✨

2.50.2+willsync2 · 2026-09-25 · DH_GERMINATE_CLEAN(1) — mwah, love u, bye 💋

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