Does “apt-get purge” remove config files stored in user home dir?

Question

I used

sudo apt-get purge [package_name]

and

sudo apt-get autoremove --purge

to remove an application so that on reinstalling it gets back to default configuration. But it didn't work, all previous modified configuration were still there.

On searching I found a dir in "/root/.[package_name]". Does apt-get purge remove config files stored in user home dir? If not then how to remove them?

Answer 1

No, it only removes shared configuration files, like those in the /etc directory. That's because only those are installed with the package by dpkg(part of the archive).

The ones in the home folders of the users are usually created at runtime by the application(eg. wine creating the initial WINEPREFIX).

Answer 2

No , it doesn't usually.

It will remove things in /etc (that belongs to the package) if your purge the package. that's where usually configuration files are stored.

Read document here