Arch Linux

dalu

Member

Registered: 2014-04-16

Posts: 83

[s] How to remove a package without deleting files?

There's this AUR package, flutter.
Meanwhile I've upgraded to an up to date version, but flutter was used to install... flutter.
However it's still listed somewhere.

I'd like to remove flutter without deleting files. Just remove it from the list of installed packages somewhere.

How?

Last edited by dalu (2022-12-30 13:32:38)

graysky

Wiki Maintainer

From: :wq

Registered: 2008-12-01

Posts: 10,636

Website

Re: [s] How to remove a package without deleting files?

I don't quite understand "flutter was used to install... flutter."  If the PKGBUILD you used follows the rules, removing the package via pacman will not touch user files and should move any key files to foo.pacsave.

Post the output of: pacman -Qm | grep flutter

Last edited by graysky (2022-12-30 08:59:13)

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V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 22,842

Re: [s] How to remove a package without deleting files?

I'm assuming they mean that they installed the pacman package which they now want to remove due to installing/updating flutter outside of pacman.

See https://archlinux.org/pacman/pacman.8.h … nd_em_u_em and use the -R flag with the --dbonly option so

pacman -R --dbonly flutter

dalu

Member

Registered: 2014-04-16

Posts: 83

Re: [s] How to remove a package without deleting files?

Thank you. I thought it would be confusing, but when I wrote it, it made sense.

Anyhow --dbonly solved it. tyvm

icar

Member

From: Catalunya

Registered: 2020-07-31

Posts: 495

Re: [s] How to remove a package without deleting files?

I've been having the same issue. The PKGBUILD installs flutter into /opt/flutter and exposes the executable only in the PATH via symlink. The issue is, you are supposed to use the executable to update flutter itself. Usually, after installing, you'd execute

flutter doctor

To check if everything is set up correctly. That command already modifies things in /opt/flutter. What's shocking is that this is expected by the package, as it has a install file that outputs, after installing the package with pacman, some info telling you to add users to the flutter group to be able to modify /opt/flutter.

I think this package needs rethinking on how to manage it, otherwise each update generates conflicting files (sometimes you can update the package, sometimes you need to set to overwrite explicitly).