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Is anybody familiar with how pacman qualifies a package as unrequired (-Qt).
When I run 'pacman -Qtd', it returns packages that are optional dependencies of explicitly installed packages.
How is that unrequired and is pacman supposed to recognize them as such ?
[ ~]$ pacman -Qtdq
linux-headers
modemmanager
usb_modeswitch
[ ~]$
[ ~]$
[ ~]$ pacman -Qi modemmanager usb_modeswitch linux-headers | grep "Install Reason"
Install Reason : Installed as a dependency for another package
Install Reason : Installed as a dependency for another package
Install Reason : Installed as a dependency for another package
[ ~]$
[ ~]$ pacman -Si catalyst-dkms | grep "Optional Deps"
Optional Deps : linux-headers: build the module against Arch kernel
[ ~]$
[ ~]$ pacman -Qi catalyst-dkms | grep "Install Reason"
Install Reason : Explicitly installed
[ ~]$
[ ~]$
[ ~]$ pacman -Si networkmanager | grep "Optional Deps"
Optional Deps : modemmanager: for modem management service
[ ~]$
[ ~]$ pacman -Qi networkmanager | grep "Install Reason"
Install Reason : Installed as a dependency for another package
[ ~]$
[ ~]$
[ ~]$ pacman -Si modemmanager | grep "Optional Deps"
Optional Deps : usb_modeswitch: install if your modem shows up as a storage drive
[ ~]$
[ ~]$ pacman -Qi modemmanager | grep "Install Reason"
Install Reason : Installed as a dependency for another package
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Unrequired just means that it's not a required dependency of something else. Optional, by definition, is not required.
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When I issue the command, I get nothing at all. The reason is that none of the packages were installed as dependencies for other packages but were installed explicitly. If you, for instance, install 'linux-headers' explicitly, it won't be listed by pacman -Qdt as well even if you install (and then uninstall) another package for which it is an optional dependency. Your action -- installing a package explicitly or not -- determines the output of the command in question.
Last edited by bohoomil (2013-01-25 21:25:49)
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Maybe I should rephrase the question.
Unrequired just means that it's not a required dependency of something else. Optional, by definition, is not required.
An optional dependency is not required in a way that it not necessarily needs to be installed for the parent package to function.
But when installed, this dependency is not an orphan package - it has a parent that relates to it, albeit optionally at first.
@bohoomil
I don't want to install 'linux-headers' explicitly, because this package serves _me_ no purpose.
It is installed because 'catalyst-dkms' needs it to rebuild the kernel module on package or kernel update.
I expect this relation to be tracked by pacman and when I eventually remove the explicit package with 'pacman -Rc" - the whole chain gets removed, leaving no dangling orphans behind.
I use 'pacman -Qtd' to check for orphan packages left installed from previous manipulations.
'pacman -Qtd' returning non-orphans got me thinking that either:
- this is not the way to track orphans (if true - what is the way ?)
or
- it is indeed a bug in this functionality and I should file a report.
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Here is a relevant bug report:
https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/11337
Also see:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Us … OptDepends
Last edited by anonymous_user (2013-01-27 01:56:10)
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Thank you!
This is what I needed.
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While waiting for true optdep support in Pacman, you may find this useful.
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