Arch Linux

thetrivialstuff

Member

Registered: 2006-05-10

Posts: 191

pacman feature request: --remark=

Often, I install a bunch of packages as dependencies of something I'm just trying out. For instance, I might want to compile some random thing just to have a look at it, but it needs a few dependencies first. Since I'm compiling it myself, I'll be installing those explicitly, so I won't catch them with pacman -Rs later. Often these dependencies will have names that I'm not going to remember next week or next month, e.g. "xcmiscproto" or "xtrans".

So, the problem is that when I'm done playing with whatever the random thing was that needed those, I'll probably miss them in cleanup. Ages later I'll be cleaning up my packages (maybe to free up hard drive space), and I'll look at explicitly installed, not required by anything packages and these will come up. And I'll go... what the heck was that for? Maybe something I compiled from scratch still needs it? But *what*?

So what'd be handy, is if I could do this when installing such packages:

pacman -S xcmiscproto xtrans --remark="trying out randomthingXYZ"

And then later:

$ pacman -Qi xcmiscproto
Name           : xcmiscproto
Version        : 1.2.1-1
URL            : http://xorg.freedesktop.org/
Licences       : custom
Groups         : None
Provides       : None
Depends On     : None
Optional Deps  : None
Required By    : None
Conflicts With : None
Replaces       : None
Installed Size :  76.00 KiB
Packager       : Jan de Groot <jgc@archlinux.org>
Architecture   : any
Build Date     : Sun 31 Oct 2010 08:23:56 PDT
Install Date   : Mon 13 Feb 2012 13:26:17 PST
Install Reason : Explicitly installed
Install Script : No
Description    : X11 XC-Miscellaneous extension wire protocol

User install remark: trying out randomthingXYZ

...And then I can remember, "Oh, that thing; yeah, I ended up not using that and got rid of it months ago; that package can go."

~Felix.

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: pacman feature request: --remark=

Wouldn't 'pacman -D --asdeps' help here?
AUR helpers should install in a way that's easily removable.

I simply make notes, add links to forum posts etc. in a text file.

thetrivialstuff

Member

Registered: 2006-05-10

Posts: 191

Re: pacman feature request: --remark=

Wouldn't 'pacman -D --asdeps' help here?
AUR helpers should install in a way that's easily removable.

asdeps doesn't let you specify as deps of what though, does it? (...Thinks about it for a second...) Ah, but the AUR package takes care of that, doesn't it? i.e. if I were to --asdeps a couple of dependencies, then if/when I do the -Rs on the AUR package, it would catch the dependencies, see that nothing else needed them, and uninstall them... I guess that'd work for AUR stuff, yeah.

I simply make notes, add links to forum posts etc. in a text file.

Yeah, I'm usually not that organized   -- but I think I would do it if that functionality were built into pacman

~Felix.

fukawi2

Ex-Administratorino

From: .vic.au

Registered: 2007-09-28

Posts: 6,237

Website

Re: pacman feature request: --remark=

Feature requests belong in the Bug Tracker

---

Are you familiar with our Forum Rules, and How To Ask Questions The Smart Way?

BlueHackers // fscanary // resticctl

thetrivialstuff

Member

Registered: 2006-05-10

Posts: 191

Re: pacman feature request: --remark=

Feature requests belong in the Bug Tracker

Oops. Ah well; I think --asdeps is probably fine for most of what I wanted this for, so I won't bother filing it.