Base packages orphaned ?

Lone_Wolf · 2006-05-25 22:04:03

Today i thought about cleaning my system form unused packages, so i ran pacman -Qe (output below) to find orphaned packages.
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.

some of the packages that were listed : sysvinit, initscripts, grub, man , PACMAN may fit the first part of the description but not the second part.

Do you think i should file a bug report ?

pacman -Qe
acpi 0.09-1
acpid 1.0.4-2
acroread 7.0.5-1
alsa-driver 1.0.11-1
alsa-oss 1.0.11-1
alsa-utils 1.0.11-1
aspell-en 6.0-1
aspell-nl 0.50-3
autoconf 2.59-2
automake 1.9.6-1
avifile 0.7.45-1
azureus 2.4.0.2-1
bash-completion 20060301-5
bin86 0.16.17-1
bison 2.1-1
cpio 2.6-1
cvsup 16.1h-3
devfsd 1.3.25-4
dhcpcd 1.3.22pl4-4
fakeroot 1.2.13-2
findutils 4.2.27-1
flashplugin 7.0.63.0-1
freenx 0.4.5-5
gaim 1.5.0-4
gdb 6.4-1
gettext 0.14.5-2
glhack 1.2-1
grub 0.97-2
gwenview 1.3.1-1
hdparm 6.3-1
hplip 0.9.8-1
hwd 4.8.2-1
initscripts 0.7.2-1
iputils 021109-4
jfsutils 1.1.10-1
k3b 0.12.15-1
kaffeine 0.8.1-1
kbd 1.12-4
kdeaccessibility 3.5.2-1
kdeaddons 3.5.2-1
kdeadmin 3.5.2-1
kdeartwork 3.5.2-1
kdebindings 3.5.2-1
kdeedu 3.5.2-1
kdegraphics 3.5.2-1
kdenetwork 3.5.2-1
kdesdk 3.5.2-1
kdetoys 3.5.2-1
kdeutils 3.5.2-1
kernel26 2.6.16.18-1
krusader 1.70.0-2
libdvdcss 1.2.9-2
licenses 1.0.1-1
lilo 22.7.1-1
lincity-ng 1.0.3-1
lynx 2.8.5-2
man 1.6c-2
man-pages 2.29-1
mc 4.6.1-4
mesa-apps 6.4.2-1
mozilla 1.7.12-1
mozilla-firefox 1.5.0.3-1
nano 1.2.5-1
net-tools 1.60-10
nethack 3.4.3-2
netselect 0.3-1
ntp 4.2.0a-6
nvidia 1.0.8178-16
nxclient 1.5.0-7
openoffice-nl 2.0.2-2
pacman 2.9.8-1
patch 2.5.4-2
pcmciautils 013-6
procinfo 18-3
procps 3.2.6-1
psmisc 22.1-1
pyqt 3.16-1
raidtools 1.00.3-3
reiserfsprogs 3.6.19-1
rp-pppoe 3.7-2
shorewall 3.0.6-4
slocate 3.1-1
sudo 1.6.8-10
syslog-ng 1.6.10-1
sysvinit 2.86-2
tar 1.15.1-2
ttf-cheapskate 2.0-4
ttf-ms-fonts 1.3-8
vim 6.4-2
vmware-workstation 5.5.1_19175-2
vultureseye 1.11.2-3
which 2.16-1
xf86-input-evdev 1.0.0.5-1
xfsprogs 2.7.11-1
xmame-sdl 0.105-1
xorg-fonts-100dpi 1.0.0-2
xorg-fonts-75dpi 1.0.0-2
xorg-fonts-type1 1.0.0-2
xterm 207-1

synthead · 2006-05-25 22:17:58

Hmm ... I get a similar output from pacman -Qe ... are you sure the man page doesn't say something otherwise? I haven't looked into it myself though ... I'll take a look

Cerebral · 2006-05-25 22:44:40

Lone_Wolf wrote:

-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.
some of the packages that were listed : sysvinit, initscripts, grub, man , PACMAN may fit the first part of the description but not the second part.

sysvinit, initscripts, grub, man, or pacman have nothing in the 'required by' field when you run pacman -Qi on them - nothing depends on them, ie they are not 'required' by any other packages. This is the normal behaviour.

synthead · 2006-05-25 23:02:30

Ah yeah, I just got around to reading that in the man page too. It's normal.

Lone_Wolf · 2006-05-26 09:59:36

Ok, so the list matches the description in pacman.

That still leaves a question :

Is it wise to have important packages listed as orphaned packages ?

Personally, i would answer NO to that question.

If more people feel the same, what would be the easiest way to change it ?

Romashka · 2006-05-26 10:30:05

Lone_Wolf wrote:

Is it wise to have important packages listed as orphaned packages ?
Personally, i would answer NO to that question.
If more people feel the same, what would be the easiest way to change it?

I agree...
IMHO, with current pacman behaviour "ophaned" should be changed to "explicitly installed".
Here is my understanding of what should be called orphaned package:
1) user installs package A, which requires packages B and C,
2) user installs package D, which requires package C,
3) after few days user decides to remove package A, but typed -R instead of -Rs, so only package A is removed, packages B and C were skipped by Pacman,

Now, package B is orphaned because it was installed as a dependency and now is not required by any other package.
Package C is not orphaned, because it is still needed by package D.
Package D should be treated by Pacman as "explicitly installed", not "orphaned".

I think there should be two different command-line options for Pacman: one for explicitly installed packages and another one for orphaned packages.

PJ · 2006-05-26 10:39:10

Lone_Wolf wrote:

Ok, so the list matches the description in pacman.
That still leaves a question :
Is it wise to have important packages listed as orphaned packages ?
Personally, i would answer NO to that question.
If more people feel the same, what would be the easiest way to change it ?

I beleive the only thing that would happend if these packages weren't orphaned is that arch linux would be less flexible. It means that I couldn't in a simple way remove them. Not saying that I am going to remove them but why make an unnessesary limit?

Some examples:
sysvinit, initscripts - I can ignore these packages if i want to run with initng instead. grub - It is possible to use lilo, don't see why grub shouldn't be orphaned. man - It is possible to skip for someone who doesn't read the man-pages.pacman - It means it possible to change the packagement-tool to something else or simply create a pacman-clone and skip the original pacman.

Romashka · 2006-05-28 15:04:09

Just FYI, wiki page for FwPacman (Frugalware's modified Pacman based on Pacman3 development code) says this as one of differences from Arch's original Pacman:

pacman -Qe list packages that were installed as a dependency (eg. _not_
installed explicitly) and are not required by other packages

Anyone knows will this be in Pacman3?

Arch Linux

#1 2006-05-25 22:04:03

Base packages orphaned ?

#2 2006-05-25 22:17:58

Re: Base packages orphaned ?

#3 2006-05-25 22:44:40

Re: Base packages orphaned ?

#4 2006-05-25 23:02:30

Re: Base packages orphaned ?

#5 2006-05-26 09:59:36

Re: Base packages orphaned ?

#6 2006-05-26 10:30:05

Re: Base packages orphaned ?

#7 2006-05-26 10:39:10

Re: Base packages orphaned ?

#8 2006-05-28 15:04:09

Re: Base packages orphaned ?

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