Arch Linux

3xOSC

Member

Registered: 2013-03-18

Posts: 107

Deleting removed packages from ABS

Over the course of the year, I have used sudo abs to keep a back up copy of my packages that were installed.  And of course some packages were removed via pacman, but their "ghost" is still in the /var/abs/ folder

Is there a way to delete from /var/abs/ packages that are no longer installed in my system?

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,459

Website

Re: Deleting removed packages from ABS

I have used sudo abs to keep a back up copy of my packages that were installed.

And how did you do that?  Abs, by default, does not just get PKGBUILDs for packages you have installed, but for all packages in the repos (unless you specify a specific package on the command line).

EDIT: I'm not sure it's relevant, but abs does not help keep backups of anything - it just retrieves current PKGBUILDs (and .install files) for repo packages.  Packages are kept in /var/cache/pacman/pkg/ - but this has nothing to do with abs.

Last edited by Trilby (2014-10-09 01:55:32)

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"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

3xOSC

Member

Registered: 2013-03-18

Posts: 107

Re: Deleting removed packages from ABS

I have used sudo abs to keep a back up copy of my packages that were installed.

And how did you do that?  Abs, by default, does not just get PKGBUILDs for packages you have installed, but for all packages in the repos (unless you specify a specific package on the command line).

EDIT: I'm not sure it's relevant, but abs does not help keep backups of anything - it just retrieves current PKGBUILDs (and .install files) for repo packages.  Packages are kept in /var/cache/pacman/pkg/ - but this has nothing to do with abs.

I did it by running sudo abs.
And you are correct, it does get PKGBUILDS for the packages, not all of them.

I thought what abs did was, take a look at the current version of the package of, say, ncmpcpp, and when you run sudo abs, it copies the PKGBUILD of the current version of ncmpcpp to /var/abs

drcouzelis

Member

From: Connecticut, USA

Registered: 2009-11-09

Posts: 4,092

Website

Re: Deleting removed packages from ABS

3xOSC, the "abs" application might worke a little differently from how you think it works...

When you run:

sudo abs

...you are downloading every PKGBUILD file for every package available from the Arch Linux repositories. I don't understand how using "abs" will help you keep a backup copy of the packages you have installed. I mean, "pacman" already keeps a backup cache of all the packages you install (...the full package, not just the PKGBUILD files like "abs" does).

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: Deleting removed packages from ABS

Please read https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Build_System
You can just remove /var/abs/ if you want.