Pacman "clean up"

abrouwers · 2006-05-24 20:31:21

Just out of curiosity...say I install a media player that has a ton of deps, and later find that I dislike it. So, I remove it using pacman, but it will only remove that one package, leaving the useless deps behind.

Is there any way to search my system for orphaned packages like this?

Thanks,

Andrew

FUBAR · 2006-05-24 20:41:36

List orphaned packages:

pacman -Qe

Remove package and its dependencies (without breaking other dependencies):

pacman -Rs foo

Learn more about this exciting tool you hear so much about:

man pacman
pacman --help
pacman -R --help
pacman -Q --help
you get the idea

skottish · 2006-06-19 23:57:32

I have a question about this:

All of the orphaned packages are simply the original tar.gz files and have no relationship to the currently installed software? I guess I'm asking, can they all safely be deleted?

Cerebral · 2006-06-20 00:37:44

From man pacman:

  -e, --orphans
          List  all  packages that were explicitly installed (ie, not pulled in as a dependency by other packages) and are
          not required by any other packages.

That pretty concisely explains what orphans are.

man is your friend.

jaboua · 2006-06-20 01:09:35

I always uninstall packages like this:

pacman -Rcs package

That also removes unneeded deps.
Also look here:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=22360

Cerebral: I always thought it was opposite - that orphans were packages pulled in as dependencies, but weren't required anymore. I'd say that it fits with the wikipedia description as well ("a child that has lost it's parents" - I think of the explicitly installed packages as parents)

skottish · 2006-06-20 01:34:04

Thanks for the replies and the script. I asked because the files listed by pacman -Qe are all the files in the cache. I thought it was strange that I even have those still. There was 566MBs worth of stuff just hanging around inside doing nothing and this build isn't three days old yet!

Anyway, the orphan script produces three files that I can't un-install with the above listed command(s). pacman -Rcs <package> just throws an error saying that <package> isn't in the database.

Cerebral · 2006-06-20 01:36:49

jaboua wrote:

Cerebral: I always thought it was opposite - that orphans were packages pulled in as dependencies, but weren't required anymore. I'd say that it fits with the wikipedia description as well

*shrug* He asked, in the context of pacman, what is considered an orphan. I never designed the system, I'm just explaining it.

malachi · 2009-09-01 03:31:31

Actually, man pacman states that the '-e' option filters output to explicit. Orphans are detected with -dt or --deps --unrequired

Allan · 2009-09-01 03:35:27

yeah - but things have changed in the last three years...

See: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/For … Bumping.27

Arch Linux

#1 2006-05-24 20:31:21

Pacman "clean up"

#2 2006-05-24 20:41:36

Re: Pacman "clean up"

#3 2006-06-19 23:57:32

Re: Pacman "clean up"

#4 2006-06-20 00:37:44

Re: Pacman "clean up"

#5 2006-06-20 01:09:35

Re: Pacman "clean up"

#6 2006-06-20 01:34:04

Re: Pacman "clean up"

#7 2006-06-20 01:36:49

Re: Pacman "clean up"

#8 2009-09-01 03:31:31

Re: Pacman "clean up"

#9 2009-09-01 03:35:27

Re: Pacman "clean up"

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