Hi 
Are you using one of these ? : deb or rpm orphan ?
Are they ok to remove old packages not used anymore , or have you got some others tools or intesresting tips for doing so ?
Thanks
There are threads to be found on these Forums about this. Search with e.g. “orphaned”.
In 11.3 zypper has an option that can tell you when you deinstall a package X, what packages are dependants of package X and not dependants of other installed packages. These packages have thus a high probability of being installed as dependants of X and could thus be orphans after the deinstall of X. But as allways be carefull not to deinstall packages that you may need in any case.
The precise option for zyppper is outlined in one of the last threads about orphaned packages in these forums.
I use yast that comes with opensuse11.3, but you also need to go to the home (user) directory, enable hidden files to be seen, and then manually remove application setting and associated rc files. While you can leave those, if you reinstall the application, it will use these old scripts as defaults (at least that is what i think it does).
The alternative is to use rpm from a superuser console, list all your packages, then delete the ones you want to from the console. The idea of listing them is to see their full name. That way, by not using the autocomplete ability, you will not delete any other similar packages.
I hope this helps.