Arch Linux

mackin_cheese

Member

Registered: 2025-01-07

Posts: 247

Correction needed for protected page

Page: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman … _(orphans)

The quote from the Arch Wiki needs correction or clarification:

Note: The arguments -Qt list only true orphans. To include packages which are optionally required by another package, pass the -t flag twice (i.e., -Qtt).

This is misleading because the term orphan is already defined on the same page as:

Orphans are packages that were installed as a dependency and are no longer required by any package.

However, the -Qt argument in pacman does not necessarily list what fits this definition of an orphan. Instead, it lists packages that are independent of each other—meaning they were installed (explicit or otherwise) and do not have dependency relationships (for example, steam and firefox would appear in -Qt because neither depends on the other, both were explicitly installed and no one, sans the insane, would consider it an orphan).

Thus, the phrase true orphan should be clarified, corrected, or removed, as it implies that -Qt strictly lists packages meeting the definition of an orphan, which it does not.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 24,075

Re: Correction needed for protected page

From context of the surrounding commands this was probably just a typo and both of these should include the -d flag to make them read -Qdt and -Qdtt respectively. I'll edit this. FWIW for the future wiki change proposals should probably rather be handled on the respective wiki talk page, that way the actual wiki maintainers get notified of changes.

Last edited by V1del (2025-02-25 01:25:56)

mackin_cheese

Member

Registered: 2025-01-07

Posts: 247

Re: Correction needed for protected page

got it! apologies and thank you!!