วิธี uninstall package apt-get

you are right, 'apt-get remove' does not do the job throughly, the solution to your problem, IMHO, can be solved this way, which is what i do in order to remove everything pertaining to the package in question:

apt-get install deborphan debfoster

#apt-get remove --purge package
#apt-get clean

the later will clean the /var

#debfoster

will show files and libraries still left after the apt-get remove --purge, if you don't recognize a library, keep it, later on, deborphan will give you a list of 'orphaned' libraries that are hanging with no use, and are safe to nuke.

if you make a mistake with debfoster, type 'u' and will ask you again if you want to keep it. When you are thru with it, invoke deborphan.

#deborphan

will give a list of libraries that are hanging just taking space, to get rid of them:

#deborphan | xargs apt-get -y remove purge

when thru with that:

#apt-get clean

recently after a dist-ugrade to sid, it installed emacs21, i removed it, and debfoster found some files like emacsen, etc.

now, i don't know if dpkg --purge is any better, i should try that sometime.