Cannot uninstall KDE apps

spike32 · 2020-04-24 13:52:30

Hello everyone!
I'm using Plasma Desktop, more specific I have installed the plasma-meta package. Everything is working well, but KDE has got a lot of apps that I don't use and they just occupy memory, and I'm not able to uninstall them.
For example, if I try to uninstall kmail:

> sudo pacman -R kmail
checking dependencies...
error: failed to prepare transaction (could not satisfy dependencies)
:: removing kmail breaks dependency 'kmail' required by kdepim-meta

So I try with:

> sudo pacman -R kdepim-meta
checking dependencies...
error: failed to prepare transaction (could not satisfy dependencies)
:: removing kdepim-meta breaks dependency 'kdepim-meta' required by kde-applications-meta

But of course I cannot uninstall kde-applications-meta package. For the same reason I cannot run pacman -Rc package otherwise it will recursively uninstall everything.
How can I uninstall useless apps?

Trilby · 2020-04-24 13:56:50

spike32 wrote:

But of course I cannot uninstall kde-applications-meta package. For the same reason I cannot run pacman -Rc package otherwise it will recursively uninstall everything.

What? That doesn't make any sense. You can and should remove the kde-applications-meta package (or whichever other higher level meta-package requires it). Just don't use the -c or -s flags. Your comparison is apples and oranges.

EDIT: actually, using the -s flag could be good if you prep first.

Steps:
1. Figure out what you actually want and mark those packages as explicitly installed.
2. Remove the meta-package(s) above those with the the -s (and optionally -n) flag.

"Simpler" now, but less cautious approach resuling in more work later:
1. Remove the top-level meta package with `pacman -R $pkgname`. This will not remove anything else.
2. Go through and remove whatever you want.
3. Sometime later, realize that lots of stuff you want is orphaned and needs to be marked as explicitly installed.

Last edited by Trilby (2020-04-24 14:00:47)

spike32 · 2020-04-24 14:00:13

Trilby wrote:

spike32 wrote:
But of course I cannot uninstall kde-applications-meta package. For the same reason I cannot run pacman -Rc package otherwise it will recursively uninstall everything.
What? That doesn't make any sense. You can and should remove the kde-applications-meta package (or whichever other higher level meta-package requires it). Just don't use the -c or -s flags. Your comparison is apples and oranges.

If I remove the kde-applications-meta package would I lose everything, wouldn't I? I mean basic things such as dolphin, konsole, etc.

Trilby · 2020-04-24 14:01:33

spike32 wrote:

If I remove the kde-applications-meta package would I lose everything, wouldn't I? I mean basic things such as dolphin, konsole, etc.

No. Pacman does what you tell it. If you remove kde-applications-meta, why would it remove anything else? (but see my edit)

Steef435 · 2020-04-24 14:26:05

spik32: if you look at the PKGBUILD for kde-applications-meta, you see that meta packages are nothing more than "empty" packages that have a lot of dependencies (you only install them to conveniently install all their dependencies). So if you just remove the meta package, you will effectively lose nothing, except some administrative advantages Trilby already talked about. ("nothing" as in, you won't lose any binaries/files/whatever)

Last edited by Steef435 (2020-04-24 14:27:36)

Arch Linux

#1 2020-04-24 13:52:30

Cannot uninstall KDE apps

#2 2020-04-24 13:56:50

Re: Cannot uninstall KDE apps

#3 2020-04-24 14:00:13

Re: Cannot uninstall KDE apps

#4 2020-04-24 14:01:33

Re: Cannot uninstall KDE apps

#5 2020-04-24 14:26:05

Re: Cannot uninstall KDE apps

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