[SOLVED] Find and remove duplicate "Provides" packages

amish · 2025-06-25 09:39:53

Hello

I would like to find and remove locally installed packages that provide same package via "Provides" directive.

For example gnu-free-fonts and noto-fonts both provide ttf-font.

So I can safely remove anyone of them as I do not need both of them.

My system may have many more such packages where I may not need both the packages.

Such redundant packages can not be found via commands like pacman -Qtdq.

So how do I find such redundant packages installed in my system which "Provide" same package? And any one of them is sufficient.

Any idea?

Thank you.

Last edited by amish (2025-06-26 07:16:32)

Lone_Wolf · 2025-06-25 11:43:36

Search for the thing they provide using -Qs .

$ pacman -Qs ttf-font
local/ttf-dejavu 2.37+18+g9b5d1b2f-7
    Font family based on the Bitstream Vera Fonts with a wider range of characters
local/ttf-jetbrains-mono-nerd 3.4.0-1 (nerd-fonts)
    Patched font JetBrains Mono from nerd fonts library
$

So I can safely remove anyone of them as I do not need both of them.

pacman may be satisifed if you have only one of them, but that's not the same as not needing them.

I have /ttf-jetbrains-mono-nerd because it's the best monospace font for me.
For other font families I prefer ttf-dejavu.

amish · 2025-06-25 14:23:10

You did not completely understand my question.

With:
pacman -Qs PROVIDES

I must be knowing the name of PROVIDES.

But what if I do not know the name of PROVIDES?

I want to know all packages which PROVIDE same thing and are redundant.

Last edited by amish (2025-06-25 14:23:51)

Whoracle · 2025-06-25 15:04:11

Really quick and really dirty: Install pyalpm from extra and use the following python snippet:

import json
from pyalpm import Handle
handle = Handle(".", "/var/lib/pacman")
localdb = handle.get_localdb()

provides = {}
for pkg in localdb.pkgcache:
	for prov in localdb.get_pkg(pkg.name).provides:
		if len(prov) > 0:
			if not prov in provides:
				provides[prov] = []
			provides[prov].append(pkg.name)

result = {}
for prov in provides:
	if len(provides[prov]) > 1:
		result[prov] = provides[prov]

with open('result.json', 'w') as fp:
    json.dump(result, fp)

This will get you a (fugly) map of PROVIDES with a list of packagenames. Adjust to taste. Write to file. Maybe skip if localdb.get_pkg(pkg.name).provides is empty, and maybe remove all PROVIDES afterwards that have only one entry.

Take that as a starting point, not as a solution, let alone a good one.

Edited to remove empty and single-.provider keys and write to file.

Last edited by Whoracle (2025-06-25 15:29:59)

seth · 2025-06-25 15:06:47

Dirtier.
Faster (I assume)

awk '/%PROVIDES%/{flag=1;next}/^$/{flag=0}flag{ printf "%s\t%s\n", FILENAME, $0}' /var/lib/pacman/local/*/desc  | sed 's%/var/lib/pacman/local/\(.*\)/desc%\1%g' | sort -k2 | uniq -Df1

Edit: and wrong, after changing the field order for uniq -f1 i forgot to adjust the sort key ("-k2", now fixed)

Last edited by seth (2025-06-25 15:35:05)

amish · 2025-06-26 06:17:41

@seth - great that was long but good command.

Thank you very much.

I have no clue what it does but it seems to work.

However, some packages may have multiple PROVIDES, for example acl, alsa-lib etc.

grep -A2 PROVIDES /var/lib/pacman/local/*/desc | more

Does your code take care of that?

Please do check.

Thank you.

Thank you to @Whoracle too for python script.

Last edited by amish (2025-06-26 06:18:54)

seth · 2025-06-26 06:25:50

Does your code take care of that?

I have no clue what it does but it seems to work.

You'll answer #1 by fixing condition #2 - don't copypaste shit you don't understand into an interactive shell.

amish · 2025-06-26 06:55:48

don't copypaste shit you don't understand into an interactive shell.

I dont know awk but I definitely looked at the code to make sure it does nothing I would not want it to do.

Thanks again.

amish · 2025-06-26 07:10:35

awk '/%(NAME|PROVIDES)%/{flag=1;next}/^$/{flag=0}flag{ printf "%s\t%s\n", FILENAME, $0}' /var/lib/pacman/local/*/desc  | sed 's%/var/lib/pacman/local/\(.*\)/desc%\1%g' | sort -k2 | uniq -Df1 | column -etN Package,Provides

Credit - @seth

This probably needs to be added in Arch Wiki for "pacman/Tips and tricks#Detecting more unneeded packages"

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman … d_packages

And then user can decide if to keep or remove redundant packages.

Last edited by amish (2025-07-01 11:23:36)

seth · 2025-06-26 07:11:54

https://www.datafix.com.au/BASHing/2020-10-21.html

awk '/%PROVIDES%/{flag=1;next}/^$/{flag=0}flag{ printf "%s\t%s\n", FILENAME, $0}' <file>

"/%PROVIDES%/" looks for "%PROVIDES%"", "{flag=1;next}" sets the flag and skips to the next line (cause we don't care about "%PROVIDES%" itself, "/^$/" looks for the next empty line, "{flag=0}flag" ends the range there, "{ printf "%s\t%s\n", FILENAME, $0}", "man printf", FILENAME is a special variable," $0" the entire line
If you skip the "uniq" part, you can see whether mulitple provisions are logged for several packages.

Edit: Please always remember to mark resolved threads by editing your initial posts subject - so others will know that there's no task left, but maybe a solution to find.
Thanks.

Last edited by seth (2025-06-26 07:12:24)

amish · 2025-06-26 07:15:45

seth wrote:

If you skip the "uniq" part, you can see whether mulitple provisions are logged for several packages.

Yes I did that, I ran each command by splitting at pipe (|) and checking output.

printf, sort and uniq, I already knew what they did.

Thank you for awk part explanation.

seth · 2025-06-26 07:46:49

You might also like https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 5#p2237585 (operating on the desc files directly would have spared the entire locale issue w/ numeric sorting…)

amish · 2025-06-26 11:06:55

Using

pacman -Qi

would probably make it more complicated as then we will need to split "Provides:" line / array.

I did think of using pacman but I had not thought of operating directly on desc file.

So only assumption here is that DBPath was not changed in pacman.conf.

Last edited by amish (2025-06-26 12:47:05)

seth · 2025-06-26 12:31:48

The other thread has a command to list the installed packages by size, it wasn't meant as a different implementation of the duplicate detection, but a different vector at slashing down the installation size.

amish · 2025-07-01 10:29:28

awk '/%(NAME|PROVIDES)%/{flag=1;next}/^$/{flag=0}flag{ printf "%s\t%s\n", FILENAME, $0}' /var/lib/pacman/local/*/desc  | sed 's%/var/lib/pacman/local/\(.*\)/desc%\1%g' | sort -k2 | uniq -Df1 | column -etN Package,Provides

%NAME% should also be checked to find packages where NAME of one package matches with PROVIDES of other package.

For example:
ca-certificates has NO %PROVIDES% but it by default provides ca-certificates
And ca-certificates-utils also PROVIDES ca-certificates.

Edit: Pretty print output in table format

Last edited by amish (2025-07-01 11:28:05)

Arch Linux

#1 2025-06-25 09:39:53

[SOLVED] Find and remove duplicate "Provides" packages

#2 2025-06-25 11:43:36

Re: [SOLVED] Find and remove duplicate "Provides" packages

#3 2025-06-25 14:23:10

Re: [SOLVED] Find and remove duplicate "Provides" packages

#4 2025-06-25 15:04:11

Re: [SOLVED] Find and remove duplicate "Provides" packages

#5 2025-06-25 15:06:47

Re: [SOLVED] Find and remove duplicate "Provides" packages

#6 2025-06-26 06:17:41

Re: [SOLVED] Find and remove duplicate "Provides" packages

#7 2025-06-26 06:25:50

Re: [SOLVED] Find and remove duplicate "Provides" packages

#8 2025-06-26 06:55:48

Re: [SOLVED] Find and remove duplicate "Provides" packages

#9 2025-06-26 07:10:35

Re: [SOLVED] Find and remove duplicate "Provides" packages

#10 2025-06-26 07:11:54

Re: [SOLVED] Find and remove duplicate "Provides" packages

#11 2025-06-26 07:15:45

Re: [SOLVED] Find and remove duplicate "Provides" packages

#12 2025-06-26 07:46:49

Re: [SOLVED] Find and remove duplicate "Provides" packages

#13 2025-06-26 11:06:55

Re: [SOLVED] Find and remove duplicate "Provides" packages

#14 2025-06-26 12:31:48

Re: [SOLVED] Find and remove duplicate "Provides" packages

#15 2025-07-01 10:29:28

Re: [SOLVED] Find and remove duplicate "Provides" packages

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