Lately I’ve been doing some work with my Ubuntu MATE system that I use for work. Today while removing residuals configs in Synaptic I noticed that there is a section called Local and Obsolete packages. Is there a way to determine which ones are obsolete vs local and if it’s safe to remove them? Part of my cleaning is that I’m attempting to remove anything not natively in the Ubuntu Repositories.
Thanks!
Most of the time, but not always. For myself its a common sense call mostly. They are installed packages that aren't in the current repository index. You could add a filter to synaptic to assist your cleaning. GTKorphan
Just be careful how you use it.
Also:
You pretty much hit the nail on the head. Some wear safely removable, some disappeared after a software update, and a few were a result of the repositories I removed. Luckily they were safe to re-add (someone should put Wimpy’s Hal package and the Numix Circle Icons in the default repository though!)
Thanks for the help
Welcome 
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