Used to Gentoo. How to acomplish some package management tasks?

quayasil · 2010-05-31 07:07:34

1. Under Gentoo there is a file '/var/lib/portage/world' that lists all the topmost (installed explicite, not as dependencies) packages. Is it possible to manage such listing under Arch?

2. During 'pacman -S something' I get messages about possible/recommended but not mandatory dependencies. For example: 'xarchiver' doesn't pull 'arj', 'lha' nor 'zip' but suggests installation of those packages. Can I obtain a list of all installed packages and information about such optional dependencies: which are currently installed and which are not (+/- Gentoo 'emerge -pev world')?

3. How can I list all installed packages in a tree view of dependencies? Can I query a single package: which other packages installed into my system require it (Gentoo 'equeries')?

4. Gentoo allows sth. called 'virtual packages' (for example *some* java). 'go-openoffice' installs 'openjdk6' by default but I can install other implementation in place of it. Can I define it a'priori, that is: make the 'go-openoffice' pull other package instead of 'openjdk6'. How can I find packages that have other implementations of the same functionality?

Best regards
Mark

Runiq · 2010-05-31 07:32:36

quayasil wrote:

1. Under Gentoo there is a file '/var/lib/portage/world' that lists all the topmost (installed explicite, not as dependencies) packages. Is it possible to manage such listing under Arch?

There's pacman -Qe or pacman -Qqe.

2. During 'pacman -S something' I get messages about possible/recommended but not mandatory dependencies. For example: 'xarchiver' doesn't pull 'arj', 'lha' nor 'zip' but suggests installation of those packages. Can I obtain a list of all installed packages and information about such optional dependencies: which are currently installed and which are not (+/- Gentoo 'emerge -pev world')?

AFAIK no, but there are plans to improve optional dependencies in general.

3. How can I list all installed packages in a tree view of dependencies? Can I query a single package: which other packages installed into my system require it (Gentoo 'equeries')?

There's pactree.

4. Gentoo allows sth. called 'virtual packages' (for example *some* java). 'go-openoffice' installs 'openjdk6' by default but I can install other implementation in place of it. Can I define it a'priori, that is: make the 'go-openoffice' pull other package instead of 'openjdk6'. How can I find packages that have other implementations of the same functionality?

We have something similar called metapackages and the "provides" function, what you want here is the provides function. You can install e.g. Sun's JRE using pacman -S --asdeps jre and then install go-openoffice. That way, go-openoffice installation shouldn't install openjdk6 as a dependency.

quayasil · 2010-05-31 07:51:15

Thanks for your reply.

Runiq wrote:

quayasil wrote:
1. Under Gentoo there is a file '/var/lib/portage/world' that lists all the topmost (installed explicite, not as dependencies) packages. Is it possible to manage such listing under Arch?
There's pacman -Qe or pacman -Qqe.

Yes. And no. I wrote "manage". "Q" is for queries. Under Gentoo I can simply add new entry to this list (without reinstalling it) -- make some package pulled in as a dependency a topmost one.

One more thing related to upgrades and security. Let's imagine that I have a system with some set of applications that works OK. There are some problems with the upstream (for example: a new GNOME release is buggy, a new PHP is incompatible, etc) and I don't want to upgrade it. But I'd like to use a secure system -- if there are critical vulnerabilities and exploits I'd better upgrade affected packages (only those!) than use a system with compromised security. Can I figure out what should they be? Debian has DSAs. Gentoo -- GLSAs. And Arch...?

Runiq · 2010-05-31 08:04:11

quayasil wrote:

Yes. And no. I wrote "manage". "Q" is for queries. Under Gentoo I can simply add new entry to this list (without reinstalling it) -- make some package pulled in as a dependency a topmost one.

Ah, I see, sorry. Well, unless you reinstall with or without --asdeps/--asexplicit, I don't think there is a way – you might want to wait for someone more experienced than I to get some final opinion on the matter, though (and on other issue you described, too).

One more thing related to upgrades and security. Let's imagine that I have a system with some set of applications that works OK. There are some problems with the upstream (for example: a new GNOME release is buggy, a new PHP is incompatible, etc) and I don't want to upgrade it. But I'd like to use a secure system -- if there are critical vulnerabilities and exploits I'd better upgrade affected packages (only those!) than use a system with compromised security. Can I figure out what should they be? Debian has DSAs. Gentoo -- GLSAs. And Arch...?

As far as I know, no. Some packages provide a changelog (you probably read about that in the manpage), but that is purely for informational purposes. Also, pacman doesn't do selective upgrades. You could put those packages in the ignorepkg array in makepkg.conf for a while and wait until upstream/package maintainers have sorted it out.

byte · 2010-05-31 08:06:39

See 'pacman -Sh', there is --asdeps and --asexplicit.

For the last question: "Arch doesn't focus on security" probably sums it up quickest.

dcc24 · 2010-05-31 08:39:57

Runiq wrote:

Also, pacman doesn't do selective upgrades

Actually, it does (see the manpage). You can update single packages but this is highly risky as it'll almost certainly break stuff.

ataraxia · 2010-05-31 15:48:08

Runiq wrote:

quayasil wrote:
Yes. And no. I wrote "manage". "Q" is for queries. Under Gentoo I can simply add new entry to this list (without reinstalling it) -- make some package pulled in as a dependency a topmost one.
Ah, I see, sorry. Well, unless you reinstall with or without --asdeps/--asexplicit, I don't think there is a way – you might want to wait for someone more experienced than I to get some final opinion on the matter, though (and on other issue you described, too).

In the dev version of pacman, there is a new -D operation that does what you want:

pacman -D --asdeps pkg (to remove something from this list)
pacman -D --asexplicit pkg (to add something to this list)

Hopefully that'll be released soon. For now, you have to either use -S as Runiq says above, which changes the flag but wastes time reinstalling the whole package as well. Or, you can hack it manually in /var/lib/pacman/local/pkg/desc for a given package.

quayasil · 2010-06-01 16:06:54

Thank you.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-05-31 07:07:34

Used to Gentoo. How to acomplish some package management tasks?

#2 2010-05-31 07:32:36

Re: Used to Gentoo. How to acomplish some package management tasks?

#3 2010-05-31 07:51:15

Re: Used to Gentoo. How to acomplish some package management tasks?

#4 2010-05-31 08:04:11

Re: Used to Gentoo. How to acomplish some package management tasks?

#5 2010-05-31 08:06:39

Re: Used to Gentoo. How to acomplish some package management tasks?

#6 2010-05-31 08:39:57

Re: Used to Gentoo. How to acomplish some package management tasks?

#7 2010-05-31 15:48:08

Re: Used to Gentoo. How to acomplish some package management tasks?

#8 2010-06-01 16:06:54

Re: Used to Gentoo. How to acomplish some package management tasks?

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