A few removed features

ConnorBehan · 2008-08-03 00:51:19

Maybe these features have been gone for awhile but I just noticed them recently (since I'm in a mad package installation phase again). When you go to http://www.archlinux.org/packages you can no longer browse by category. The PKGBUILDs still let you specify them and /var/abs still pays attention to them but is there any specific reason why you removed that feature from the web interface? The CVS to SVN migration perhaps? It's not a huge deal, I really shouldn't be using the web interface that much but I thought the categories were more productive than the "i686" and "x86_64" tags beside each package.

Another thing I seem to remember was a pacman query option to list all unrequired packages that were initially installed as dependencies. This helps free up some space - if someone has an extremely basic X desktop, and then they suddenly install something like blender they are going to clutter their system with quite a few dependencies. If they decide to stop using blender on that machine, it helps to know exactly which packages can be uninstalled besides just blender. This isn't a big deal either because it's merely a matter of cross checking pacman -Qe with pacman -Qt. Is that what the old implementation did? Or was it something more complicated that was getting really hard to maintain?

I don't mean to complain about such a great distro but I have trouble seeing why these things were removed. I don't read the developer blogs as often as I should but is there a place where planned feature removals and reasons for them are routinely posted? This would be much appreciated and in some areas I would certainly be willing to help. I don't exactly know enough to be confident maintaining kernel26mm (no offence tomk, I can only imagine how hard that was to maintain) but if a simple algorithm in pacman is pending removal due to lack of developer interest, I'd be more than happy to write, test and submit patches.

Allan · 2008-08-03 01:27:54

ConnorBehan wrote:

Maybe these features have been gone for awhile but I just noticed them recently (since I'm in a mad package installation phase again). When you go to http://www.archlinux.org/packages you can no longer browse by category. The PKGBUILDs still let you specify them and /var/abs still pays attention to them but is there any specific reason why you removed that feature from the web interface? The CVS to SVN migration perhaps? It's not a huge deal, I really shouldn't be using the web interface that much but I thought the categories were more productive than the "i686" and "x86_64" tags beside each package.

What do you mean that the PKGBUILDs let you specify them? The are not in /var/abs either apart from for community which hasn't switched over yet. The problems was that many of the categories overlap (should kdevelop go under kde or devel?) so the have been removed. Perhaps a tagging system will get implemented some day.

ConnorBehan wrote:

Another thing I seem to remember was a pacman query option to list all unrequired packages that were initially installed as dependencies. This helps free up some space - if someone has an extremely basic X desktop, and then they suddenly install something like blender they are going to clutter their system with quite a few dependencies. If they decide to stop using blender on that machine, it helps to know exactly which packages can be uninstalled besides just blender. This isn't a big deal either because it's merely a matter of cross checking pacman -Qe with pacman -Qt. Is that what the old implementation did? Or was it something more complicated that was getting really hard to maintain?

pacman -Qtd

Snowman · 2008-08-03 01:32:06

ConnorBehan wrote:

Maybe these features have been gone for awhile but I just noticed them recently (since I'm in a mad package installation phase again). When you go to http://www.archlinux.org/packages you can no longer browse by category. The PKGBUILDs still let you specify them and /var/abs still pays attention to them but is there any specific reason why you removed that feature from the web interface? The CVS to SVN migration perhaps? It's not a huge deal, I really shouldn't be using the web interface that much but I thought the categories were more productive than the "i686" and "x86_64" tags beside each package.

The categories were removed when we switched to svn. They are no longer in abs except the ones for the community repo as it is still using cvs. Categories were awkward as packages could fit in several categories. To find a package, use the search box.

ConnorBehan wrote:

Another thing I seem to remember was a pacman query option to list all unrequired packages that were initially installed as dependencies. This helps free up some space - if someone has an extremely basic X desktop, and then they suddenly install something like blender they are going to clutter their system with quite a few dependencies. If they decide to stop using blender on that machine, it helps to know exactly which packages can be uninstalled besides just blender. This isn't a big deal either because it's merely a matter of cross checking pacman -Qe with pacman -Qt. Is that what the old implementation did? Or was it something more complicated that was getting really hard to maintain?

The current way to check orphans (according to man page) is with pacman -Qet

EDIT: Allan was quicker to post.

ConnorBehan · 2008-08-03 02:04:05

Ok I'm an idiot on several counts. I thought I had run abs recently but I guess I was wrong. Preventing overlaps is a good reason. But I like the tagging idea... for those days when I want to see what multimedia apps I haven't tried or what science apps I haven't tried, etc. And I'm not sure what I was thinking... I meant you can select a category when submitting to the AUR, not in the PKGBUILD itself. Also I read -Qet in the man page and tried that but -Qdt is what I wanted. I can't believe I didn't notice that, it's right in the man page as well.

You can close this thread... hell you can send it to the troll bin. It's useless now.

peets · 2008-08-03 02:38:46

ConnorBehan wrote:

You can close this thread... hell you can send it to the troll bin. It's useless now.

Lol it was actually quite informative for me. Thanks for asking. And Allan, Snowman, thanks for the answers.

B-Con · 2008-08-03 05:42:31

Snowman wrote:

The current way to check orphans (according to man page) is with pacman -Qet
EDIT: Allan was quicker to post.

-Qet was depreciated*, according to the manpage, it's -Qdt now. -Qet gives the list of explicitly installed packages that nothing else depends on. I arrived just before the switch, so I don't know which of the -d, -e, or -t options were changed, I would assume the -t option was originally the inverse of its current operation?

[edit]
* As an orphan-finder, that is, it'll just list all packages explicitly installed that aren't needed as dependencies.

Last edited by B-Con (2008-08-03 05:46:37)

Arch Linux

#1 2008-08-03 00:51:19

A few removed features

#2 2008-08-03 01:27:54

Re: A few removed features

#3 2008-08-03 01:32:06

Re: A few removed features

#4 2008-08-03 02:04:05

Re: A few removed features

#5 2008-08-03 02:38:46

Re: A few removed features

#6 2008-08-03 05:42:31

Re: A few removed features

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