Arch Linux

vrik

Member

Registered: 2023-01-30

Posts: 22

[SOLVED]element leaves old versions of electron installed after update

The element-desktop package keeps old versions of electron after updates where they are no longer needed.
After an update that was pushed few hours ago electron29 is installed on my system after it isnt used by anything, here are logs before and after i updated the package

Before updating element-desktop

$ pacman -Qi element-desktop
Name            : element-desktop
Version         : 1.11.65-1
Description     : Glossy Matrix collaboration client — desktop version.
Architecture    : x86_64
URL             : https://element.io
Licenses        : Apache
Groups          : None
Provides        : None
Depends On      : element-web=1.11.65  electron29  libsecret
Optional Deps   : None
Required By     : None
Optional For    : None
Conflicts With  : None
Replaces        : riot-desktop
Installed Size  : 24.01 MiB
Packager        : Antonio Rojas <arojas@archlinux.org>
Build Date      : Fri 26 Apr 2024 10:03:26 PM CEST
Install Date    : Sat 27 Apr 2024 02:19:42 PM CEST
Install Reason  : Explicitly installed
Install Script  : No
Validated By    : Signature

$ pacman -Qi electron29
 Name            : electron29
Version         : 29.4.3-1
Description     : Build cross platform desktop apps with web technologies
Architecture    : x86_64
URL             : https://electronjs.org
Licenses        : MIT  BSD-3-Clause
Groups          : None
Provides        : None
Depends On      : c-ares  gcc-libs  glibc  gtk3  libgtk-3.so=0-64  libevent  libffi  libffi.so=8-64  libpulse  libpulse.so=0-64  nss  zlib  libz.so=1-64  fontconfig
                  libfontconfig.so=1-64  libjpeg  libjpeg.so=8-64  icu  libicui18n.so=75-64  libicuuc.so=75-64  dav1d  libdav1d.so=7-64  flac  libFLAC.so=12-64  libdrm  libxml2
                  libxml2.so=2-64  libwebp  libwebpdemux.so=2-64  libwebpmux.so=3-64  libwebp.so=7-64  minizip  opus  libopus.so=0-64  harfbuzz  libharfbuzz.so=0-64
                  libharfbuzz-subset.so=0-64  libxslt  libxslt.so=1-64  libpng  libpng16.so=16-64  freetype2  libfreetype.so=6-64
Optional Deps   : kde-cli-tools: file deletion support (kioclient5)
                  pipewire: WebRTC desktop sharing under Wayland [installed]
                  qt5-base: enable Qt5 with --enable-features=AllowQt [installed]
                  gtk4: for --gtk-version=4 (GTK4 IME might work better on Wayland) [installed]
                  trash-cli: file deletion support (trash-put)
                  xdg-utils: open URLs with desktop’s default (xdg-email, xdg-open) [installed]
Required By     : element-desktop
Optional For    : None
Conflicts With  : None
Replaces        : None
Installed Size  : 228.02 MiB
Packager        : Caleb Maclennan <alerque@archlinux.org>
Build Date      : Thu 06 Jun 2024 01:42:09 AM CEST
Install Date    : Fri 07 Jun 2024 01:40:03 PM CEST
Install Reason  : Installed as a dependency for another package
Install Script  : No
Validated By    : Signature

$ pacman -Qi electron30
error: package 'electron30' was not found

After updating electron-desktop

$ pacman -Qi element-desktop
Name            : element-desktop
Version         : 1.11.68-1
Description     : Glossy Matrix collaboration client — desktop version.
Architecture    : x86_64
URL             : https://element.io
Licenses        : Apache
Groups          : None
Provides        : None
Depends On      : element-web=1.11.68  electron30  libsecret
Optional Deps   : None
Required By     : None
Optional For    : None
Conflicts With  : None
Replaces        : riot-desktop
Installed Size  : 24.97 MiB
Packager        : Antonio Rojas <arojas@archlinux.org>
Build Date      : Sun 09 Jun 2024 11:44:06 AM CEST
Install Date    : Sun 09 Jun 2024 08:33:16 PM CEST
Install Reason  : Explicitly installed
Install Script  : No
Validated By    : Signature

$ pacman -Qi electron29
Name            : electron29
Version         : 29.4.3-1
Description     : Build cross platform desktop apps with web technologies
Architecture    : x86_64
URL             : https://electronjs.org
Licenses        : MIT  BSD-3-Clause
Groups          : None
Provides        : None
Depends On      : c-ares  gcc-libs  glibc  gtk3  libgtk-3.so=0-64  libevent  libffi  libffi.so=8-64  libpulse  libpulse.so=0-64  nss  zlib  libz.so=1-64  fontconfig
                  libfontconfig.so=1-64  libjpeg  libjpeg.so=8-64  icu  libicui18n.so=75-64  libicuuc.so=75-64  dav1d  libdav1d.so=7-64  flac  libFLAC.so=12-64  libdrm  libxml2
                  libxml2.so=2-64  libwebp  libwebpdemux.so=2-64  libwebpmux.so=3-64  libwebp.so=7-64  minizip  opus  libopus.so=0-64  harfbuzz  libharfbuzz.so=0-64
                  libharfbuzz-subset.so=0-64  libxslt  libxslt.so=1-64  libpng  libpng16.so=16-64  freetype2  libfreetype.so=6-64
Optional Deps   : kde-cli-tools: file deletion support (kioclient5)
                  pipewire: WebRTC desktop sharing under Wayland [installed]
                  qt5-base: enable Qt5 with --enable-features=AllowQt [installed]
                  gtk4: for --gtk-version=4 (GTK4 IME might work better on Wayland) [installed]
                  trash-cli: file deletion support (trash-put)
                  xdg-utils: open URLs with desktop’s default (xdg-email, xdg-open) [installed]
Required By     : None
Optional For    : None
Conflicts With  : None
Replaces        : None
Installed Size  : 228.02 MiB
Packager        : Caleb Maclennan <alerque@archlinux.org>
Build Date      : Thu 06 Jun 2024 01:42:09 AM CEST
Install Date    : Fri 07 Jun 2024 01:40:03 PM CEST
Install Reason  : Installed as a dependency for another package
Install Script  : No
Validated By    : Signature

$ pacman -Qi electron30
Name            : electron30
Version         : 30.1.0-1
Description     : Build cross platform desktop apps with web technologies
Architecture    : x86_64
URL             : https://electronjs.org
Licenses        : MIT  BSD-3-Clause
Groups          : None
Provides        : None
Depends On      : c-ares  gcc-libs  glibc  gtk3  libgtk-3.so=0-64  libevent  libffi  libffi.so=8-64  libpulse  libpulse.so=0-64  nss  zlib  libz.so=1-64  fontconfig
                  libfontconfig.so=1-64  brotli  libjpeg  libjpeg.so=8-64  icu  libicui18n.so=75-64  libicuuc.so=75-64  dav1d  libdav1d.so=7-64  flac  libFLAC.so=12-64  libdrm  libxml2
                  libxml2.so=2-64  minizip  opus  libopus.so=0-64  harfbuzz  libharfbuzz.so=0-64  libharfbuzz-subset.so=0-64  libxslt  libxslt.so=1-64  libpng  libpng16.so=16-64
                  freetype2  libfreetype.so=6-64
Optional Deps   : kde-cli-tools: file deletion support (kioclient5)
                  pipewire: WebRTC desktop sharing under Wayland [installed]
                  qt5-base: enable Qt5 with --enable-features=AllowQt [installed]
                  gtk4: for --gtk-version=4 (GTK4 IME might work better on Wayland) [installed]
                  trash-cli: file deletion support (trash-put)
                  xdg-utils: open URLs with desktop’s default (xdg-email, xdg-open) [installed]
Required By     : element-desktop
Optional For    : None
Conflicts With  : None
Replaces        : None
Installed Size  : 228.69 MiB
Packager        : Caleb Maclennan <alerque@archlinux.org>
Build Date      : Thu 06 Jun 2024 01:50:50 AM CEST
Install Date    : Sun 09 Jun 2024 08:33:16 PM CEST
Install Reason  : Installed as a dependency for another package
Install Script  : No
Validated By    : Signature

though in a section of the wiki it says that orphan packages can appear on your system if a package removes a dependency, which would be expected behaviour. I am unsure if this counts as this though, because its just trying to install a new version of electron, but it is technically a different package
so correct me if this is intended behavior and im just overthinking things

Last edited by vrik (2024-06-09 19:48:06)

WorMzy

Administrator

From: Scotland

Registered: 2010-06-16

Posts: 12,368

Website

Re: [SOLVED]element leaves old versions of electron installed after update

It does count, because electron29 and electron30 are different packages that can be installed side-by-side. You haven't upgraded electron29 to electron30, you have both installed. The dependency that existed on electron29 no longer exists, so it is an unused package/orphan.

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Awebb

Member

Registered: 2010-05-06

Posts: 6,563

Re: [SOLVED]element leaves old versions of electron installed after update

You're overthinking things, but you're not wrong to linger at this issue for a moment.

Arch generally does not keep multiple versions of the same library like e.g. Debian would. Electron and Java (and perhaps a few others) are an exception: Programs made for one version often cannot easily be ported to a newer version of the runtime, so people have legitimate reasons to run multiple runtime versions next to each other. There is currently a duplication of many Qt libraries for 5 and 6, and Gtk is now (what?) between 3 and 4 (are we done with Gtk2 yet?). Python used to have distinct versions 2 and 3.

vrik

Member

Registered: 2023-01-30

Posts: 22

Re: [SOLVED]element leaves old versions of electron installed after update

alright, sorry for cluttering the forum