diff --git a/packages/visionary-dls-core/.gitkeep b/packages/visionary-dls-core/.gitkeep
deleted file mode 100644
index e69de29bb2d1d6434b8b29ae775ad8c2e48c5391..0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
diff --git a/packages/visionary-dls-core/package.py b/packages/visionary-dls-core/package.py
deleted file mode 100644
index 6fc996810cbb1686824e25cde5f91e7a0a42fb91..0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
--- a/packages/visionary-dls-core/package.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,75 +0,0 @@
-# Copyright 2013-2019 Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC and other
-# Spack Project Developers. See the top-level COPYRIGHT file for details.
-#
-# SPDX-License-Identifier: (Apache-2.0 OR MIT)
-
-from spack import *
-
-
-class VisionaryDlsCore(Package):
-    """Core package that contains dependencies of the core DLS software
-    ONLY!"""
-
-    homepage = ''
-    # some random tarball, to make `spack fetch --dependencies visionary-defaults` work
-    url = 'https://github.com/electronicvisions/spack/archive/v0.8.tar.gz'
-
-    # This is only a dummy tarball (see difference between version numbers)
-    # TODO: as soon as a MetaPackage-concept has been merged, please update this package
-    version('1.0', '372ce038842f20bf0ae02de50c26e85d', url='https://github.com/electronicvisions/spack/archive/v0.8.tar.gz')
-
-    # Depend on visionary-nux to enable joint developement of host and PPU code with one meta package
-    depends_on('visionary-nux ~dev')
-
-    # depends_on('libusb-1.0')  external dependency
-    depends_on('bear')
-    depends_on('bitsery')
-    depends_on('boost@1.69.0: +graph+icu+mpi+python+numpy+coroutine+context+valgrind cxxstd=17')
-    depends_on('cereal')
-    depends_on('cppcheck')
-    depends_on('doxygen+graphviz')
-    depends_on('genpybind@visions')
-    depends_on('gflags')
-    depends_on('googletest+gmock')
-    # depends_on('icarus')
-    depends_on('intel-tbb')  # ppu gdbserver
-    depends_on('libelf')
-    depends_on('liblockfile')
-    depends_on('llvm')
-    depends_on('log4cxx')
-    depends_on('munge')
-    depends_on('pkg-config')
-    depends_on('py-matplotlib')
-    depends_on('py-nose')
-    depends_on('py-numpy')
-    depends_on('py-pybind11')
-    depends_on('py-pybind11-stubgen')
-    depends_on('py-pycodestyle')
-    depends_on('py-pyelftools')
-    depends_on('py-pylint')
-    depends_on('py-pynn')
-    depends_on('py-python-usbtmc')
-    depends_on('py-scipy')
-    depends_on('py-sqlalchemy')
-    depends_on('util-linux') # from lib-rcf
-    depends_on('yaml-cpp+shared')
-
-    ##################
-    # Current fixups #
-    ##################
-    # intel-mkldnn depends on intel-mkl which also provides blas ->
-    # concretization error -> reinvestigate when needed
-    depends_on('py-torch ~mkldnn')
-
-    # we only support Python 3.7+!
-    depends_on('python@3.7.0:')
-
-    # xilinx runtime dependencies
-    depends_on('visionary-xilinx')
-
-    def install(self, spec, prefix):
-        mkdirp(prefix.etc)
-        # store a copy of this package.
-        install(__file__, join_path(prefix.etc, spec.name + '.py'))
-
-        # we could create some filesystem view here?
diff --git a/packages/visionary-nux/.gitkeep b/packages/visionary-nux/.gitkeep
deleted file mode 100644
index e69de29bb2d1d6434b8b29ae775ad8c2e48c5391..0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
diff --git a/packages/visionary-nux/package.py b/packages/visionary-nux/package.py
deleted file mode 100644
index 15a6a87d369bd930dac52a839c4aae091958e3e2..0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
--- a/packages/visionary-nux/package.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,60 +0,0 @@
-##############################################################################
-# Copyright (c) 2013-2016, Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC.
-# Produced at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
-#
-# This file is part of Spack.
-# Created by Todd Gamblin, tgamblin@llnl.gov, All rights reserved.
-# LLNL-CODE-647188
-#
-# For details, see https://github.com/llnl/spack
-# Please also see the LICENSE file for our notice and the LGPL.
-#
-# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
-# it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License (as
-# published by the Free Software Foundation) version 2.1, February 1999.
-#
-# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
-# WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the IMPLIED WARRANTY OF
-# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the terms and
-# conditions of the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
-#
-# You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
-# License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
-# Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
-##############################################################################
-from spack import *
-
-
-class VisionaryNux(Package):
-    """Visionary Meta Package"""
-
-    homepage = ''
-    # some random tarball, to make `spack fetch --dependencies visionary-defaults` work
-    url = 'https://github.com/electronicvisions/spack/archive/v0.8.tar.gz'
-
-    # This is only a dummy tarball (see difference between version numbers)
-    # TODO: as soon as a MetaPackage-concept has been merged, please update this package
-    version('1.0', '372ce038842f20bf0ae02de50c26e85d', url='https://github.com/electronicvisions/spack/archive/v0.8.tar.gz')
-
-    variant('dev', default=True)
-
-    depends_on('visionary-dev-tools', when='+dev')
-
-    depends_on('gettext')
-    depends_on('zlib')
-
-    # was bison 3.0.4 in the past
-    depends_on('bison')
-    depends_on('flex')
-    depends_on('m4')
-    depends_on('texinfo')
-    depends_on('wget')
-
-    conflicts('flex', when='@2.6.3', msg='Binutils 2.25 for Nux doesn\'t build with flex 2.6.3.')
-
-    def install(self, spec, prefix):
-        mkdirp(prefix.etc)
-        # store a copy of this package.
-        install(__file__, join_path(prefix.etc, 'visionary-nux.py'))
-
-        # we could create some filesystem view here?