pacman feature request "Package purge uninstall"

venky80 · 2009-04-22 14:35:08

hello
I have been thinking about this issue for a long long time and have posted it in the forums many time in various ways, but maybe I can explain the issue properly and experts can chime in.
This is regarding keeping the file system extremely clean what i mean by that is having very high level of control over what files are installed in all the directories except /home.
The purpose is to revert the file system to the way it was when the system was freshly installed.

Case: Samba
If I install samba in my fresh install machine, I will most probably change /etc/samba/smb.conf now what it does is when I decide remove samba even using pacman -Rscn samba I am left with /etc/samba directory which is pure junk, I do understand pacman not wanting to remove files which have been edited but I would like to have a purge option which takes away the files and directories installed by a package, I am not a developer but is there a place where I can ask for this feature?

What will this feature mean?
This will make reverting to fresh install really easy. If after the fresh install i have added lots of packages all I need to do is to remove those packages with the purge option and my install is back to fresh install state, ofcourse i wouldhave to replace all config files with their respective pacnew files.

Is this a valid request? can any expert share their thoughts as to why it can/ cannot be implemented?

Thanks for reading

.:B:. · 2009-04-22 15:49:31

The bugtracker is where you need to be . I think your question (a valid one, if you ask me) is related to the same problem pacman experiences with replacing directories with files (e.g. with the latest dovecot upgrade).

venky80 · 2009-04-22 15:51:10

Thanks for chiming in, this has been my only small issue which keeps from making arch my dream distro....it is the closest however..;)

Inxsible · 2009-04-22 16:10:11

venky80 wrote:

Thanks for chiming in, this has been my only small issue which keeps from making arch my dream distro....it is the closest however..;)

Really ?? I mean it would be nice to have the feature, but it still ain't that difficult to do a sudo rm on the files in question.

Nezmer · 2009-04-22 16:29:37

http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/13998?pr … pened=4190

venky80 · 2009-04-22 18:13:12

Inxsible wrote:

venky80 wrote:
Thanks for chiming in, this has been my only small issue which keeps from making arch my dream distro....it is the closest however..;)
Really ?? I mean it would be nice to have the feature, but it still ain't that difficult to do a sudo rm on the files in question.

Oh ya , do you really think one can sudo rm all the files relevant to 100s of packages which are installed and uninstalled after the initial fresh install?
well good luck with that!

venky80 · 2009-04-22 18:19:51

Nezmer wrote:

http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/13998?pr … pened=4190

Oh thanks that is exactly what i was talking about implementing this feature will truly make pacman a remarkable package management tool

jimmy the saint · 2009-04-25 20:31:30

I read the bug at the posted link and it seems that there is little support for the feature based on a fear of deleting files used by other apps. The comments indicate that this would be a very difficult feature to get right. Maybe I am missing something, but don't other package managers (eg aptitude) have this feature working well? Why would it be so much harder or dangerous on Arch than Debian or Ubuntu?

venky80 · 2009-04-26 03:00:11

jimmy the saint wrote:

I read the bug at the posted link and it seems that there is little support for the feature based on a fear of deleting files used by other apps. The comments indicate that this would be a very difficult feature to get right. Maybe I am missing something, but don't other package managers (eg aptitude) have this feature working well? Why would it be so much harder or dangerous on Arch than Debian or Ubuntu?

I would want to know if any other package manager can handle this....do u know of any?

jimmy the saint · 2009-04-26 03:30:18

I thought aptitude/dpkg did that, but like I said, maybe I am just missing something. The way I understand it, the OP is talking about uninstalling the program and its config files, completely wiping out the installation and its traces. I was under the impression that aptitude did that.

Nezmer · 2009-04-26 11:10:30

jimmy the saint wrote:

I thought aptitude/dpkg did that, but like I said, maybe I am just missing something. The way I understand it, the OP is talking about uninstalling the program and its config files, completely wiping out the installation and its traces. I was under the impression that aptitude did that.

I think 'purge' in apt is equivalent to '--nosave' in pacman . We are talking here about a more complicated case .

stefanwilkens · 2009-04-26 11:33:08

+1 to this suggestion: I too find myself trawling the system to clean-up any remaining files and directories after an uninstall of any package.

Though I suppose it would be hard to determine what to remove (as mentioned in the bug tracker), we could look at an in between solution. Various uninstall programs on windows systems provide a list of folders and files that where not removed. We could provide a similar list.

In the case of samba, the uninstall sequence could create a notion in the pacman logs along the lines of:

Created during installation but not removed:
*DIR: /etc/samba/
*FILE: /etc/rc.d/samba

Any subsequent action would then be up to the end user. Pacman should also output to terminal if any files / directories remain on the system after an uninstall, along the lines of:

$ pacman -R samba
# (1/1) samba removed
# There are unremoved files / directories, check /var/log/pacman.log for more details!

Last edited by stefanwilkens (2009-04-26 11:42:58)

Allan · 2009-04-26 11:38:03

stefanwilkens wrote:

+1

To what exactly... Also, read this:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/For … mpty_Posts

stefanwilkens · 2009-04-26 11:44:27

Allan wrote:

stefanwilkens wrote:
+1
To what exactly... Also, read this:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/For … mpty_Posts

I had jumped to submit, I have corrected

Arch Linux

#1 2009-04-22 14:35:08

pacman feature request "Package purge uninstall"

#2 2009-04-22 15:49:31

Re: pacman feature request "Package purge uninstall"

#3 2009-04-22 15:51:10

Re: pacman feature request "Package purge uninstall"

#4 2009-04-22 16:10:11

Re: pacman feature request "Package purge uninstall"

#5 2009-04-22 16:29:37

Re: pacman feature request "Package purge uninstall"

#6 2009-04-22 18:13:12

Re: pacman feature request "Package purge uninstall"

#7 2009-04-22 18:19:51

Re: pacman feature request "Package purge uninstall"

#8 2009-04-25 20:31:30

Re: pacman feature request "Package purge uninstall"

#9 2009-04-26 03:00:11

Re: pacman feature request "Package purge uninstall"

#10 2009-04-26 03:30:18

Re: pacman feature request "Package purge uninstall"

#11 2009-04-26 11:10:30

Re: pacman feature request "Package purge uninstall"

#12 2009-04-26 11:33:08

Re: pacman feature request "Package purge uninstall"

#13 2009-04-26 11:38:03

Re: pacman feature request "Package purge uninstall"

#14 2009-04-26 11:44:27

Re: pacman feature request "Package purge uninstall"

Board footer