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#1 2010-06-23 16:49:19

Ben9250
Member
From: Bath - England
Registered: 2010-06-10
Posts: 208
Website

[SOLVED] Uncluttering system methods

Hey all, I decided that it would be a good idea to get into the habit of decluttering my system. Was looking through the recent changes and news. If xorg used xorg.conf.d .conf files as a replacemeny for hal .fdi files then I don't suppose there would be any need for the keymap .fdi files in /etc/hal/fdi/policy/ anymore (or that filesystem as apart from that file it's just empty folders)? I read about some ways people clean up unused files and packages and I've read of these:

pacman -Qqet
pacman -Qqdt

To display installed packages and then orphan packages. But also:

pacman -Syy
pacman -Scc
pacman -Suu

pacman -Rscnd <program>

pacman -Rsn $(pacman -Qdtq)

pacman -Qei | awk '/^Name/ { name=$3 } /^Groups/ { if ( $3 != "base" && $3 != "base-devel" ) { print name } }'

pacman -Qdtq > orphans

pacman -Q

What is the best way to go around such cleaning up? I understand the home directory needs to be manually sifted through. I had a go at using pacman -Qqdt and is displayed:
boost
cmake
kernel26-headers
rpcbind
Not entirely sure on if I need these, and natrually only having arch working for a few weeks I'm hesitant to touch the one called 'kernel headers'.

Last edited by Ben9250 (2010-07-05 21:44:15)


"In England we have come to rely upon a comfortable time-lag of fifty years or a century intervening between the perception that something ought to be done and a serious attempt to do it."
  - H. G. Wells

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#2 2010-06-23 17:32:02

karol
Archivist
Registered: 2009-05-06
Posts: 25,440

Re: [SOLVED] Uncluttering system methods

> I'm hesitant to touch the one called 'kernel'.
So don't.

> What is the best way to go around such cleaning up?
If you install an app to try it out and then you decide to remove it, make sure it went away taking all its deps along - unless they're needed by some other app you've installed in the meantime. I don't remeber how save is 'pacman -Rscnd <program>'.

Edit:
  -d, --nodeps         skip dependency checks
This means it's *not* safe unless you really know what you're doing. Usually pacman handles the dependencies better than you :-)

You should know what packages you have and what do they do:

pacman -Qi cmake | grep Description
Description    : A cross-platform open-source make system

What do you need it for? Maybe you were compiling sth?

You can keep a note-to-self textfile where manually keep tabs on some packages:

2010-06-18: installed texlive-*
Updating the fontcache after every f*cking package is a PITA (doubly so, because it also gets updated when you uninstall the packages <sigh>), but I guess pacman doesn't work w/ 'batches' or 'update sessions', only packages.

If you keep older versions of the packages you use in the cache you can easily rollback (so easy w/ 'pacman -Scc').
Removing .pacnew, .pacsave etc. files is A Good Thing too: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pac … save_Files

Last edited by karol (2010-06-23 17:35:43)

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#3 2010-06-23 17:57:15

falconindy
Developer
From: New York, USA
Registered: 2009-10-22
Posts: 4,111
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Uncluttering system methods

Ben9250 wrote:

pacman -Rscnd <program>

Great way to break multiple programs in a single command.

Ben9250 wrote:

pacman -Qei | awk '/^Name/ { name=$3 } /^Groups/ { if ( $3 != "base" && $3 != "base-devel" ) { print name } }'

Cleaned this up for you:

comm -23 <(pacman -Qqe) <(sort <(pacman -Qqg base) <(pacman -Qqg base-devel))
Ben9250 wrote:

What is the best way to go around such cleaning up? I understand the home directory needs to be manually sifted through. I had a go at using pacman -Qqdt and is displayed:
boost
cmake
kernel26-headers
rpcbind
Not entirely sure on if I need these, and natrually only having arch working for a few weeks I'm hesitant to touch the one called 'kernel'.

If you're feeling unsure, leave it. If you're feeling adventurous, remove and see what breaks (usually my preferred method). Removing kernel26-headers isn't going to break anything serious. You won't be able build kernel modules like aufs, nvidia, or lirc. rpcbind is a dependency of NFS. boost and cmake -- if you don't know what they are, you don't need them.

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#4 2010-06-23 18:03:13

Ben9250
Member
From: Bath - England
Registered: 2010-06-10
Posts: 208
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Uncluttering system methods

Ok, I have pacdiffviewer for managing these pacnew and pacsave files. I understand I have to merge pacnew files with the origional and then delete the one with the .new extension, in pacdiffviewer is this selecting the file with its number and then choosing replace? (Out of the options of Edit, Replace, Edit, Continue, and Abort)

Cleaned this up for you:

comm -23 <(pacman -Qqe) <(sort <(pacman -Qqg base) <(pacman -Qqg base-devel))

This from my understanding will remove packages deemed not used/orphaned (Had a look at the wikis but disnt see the switches -Qqe or -Qqg)?   Although I'm betting going through and removing packages listed as orphaned manually with pacman -R(d?) and seeing what breaks as you say is the best approach. Just had a read of what to do if an update screws up the computer for future reference. Strikes me that this sort of maintanance is best done one a week/every few weeks.

Last edited by Ben9250 (2010-06-23 18:25:54)


"In England we have come to rely upon a comfortable time-lag of fifty years or a century intervening between the perception that something ought to be done and a serious attempt to do it."
  - H. G. Wells

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#5 2010-07-05 21:43:55

Ben9250
Member
From: Bath - England
Registered: 2010-06-10
Posts: 208
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Uncluttering system methods

I've discovered a way of merging and checking differences in EMACS, which I am far more accustomed to using due to my experience with R and SQLite and EMACS


"In England we have come to rely upon a comfortable time-lag of fifty years or a century intervening between the perception that something ought to be done and a serious attempt to do it."
  - H. G. Wells

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