[gentoo-user] Depclean

[gentoo-user] Depclean

[Sébastien MORAND]

Hi everybody,

I'm trying to clean my install (one year old, so it's time to do it). I run an
update, and run :
emerge --newuse -Dvu world

It installs a lot of update and so on and do everything ok.

Afterwards, I run :
revdep-rebuild

It makes a lot of rebuild about some broken link, I also uninstall so useless
software and/or lib.

Now, I'm quite sure everything is correctly linked, since runing emerge --newuse
-Dvu world or revdep-rebuild answers : << nothing has to be done >>.

Now I try the dangerous following command as describe in the documentation :
emerge --depclean -p (just to see what should be done)

And then I'm quite surprise, 41 packages should be removed, and among them, a
lot of usefull lib or tool (perl-ldap, xinetd, and so on ...)

Is this result normal ? What did I miss ?

Thank by advance about this your help.
Sébastien

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Re: [gentoo-user] Depclean

[Zac Medico]

Sébastien MORAND wrote:
> Hi everybody,
> 
> I'm trying to clean my install (one year old, so it's time to do it). I run an
> update, and run :
> emerge --newuse -Dvu world
> 
> It installs a lot of update and so on and do everything ok.
> 
> Afterwards, I run :
> revdep-rebuild
> 
> It makes a lot of rebuild about some broken link, I also uninstall so useless
> software and/or lib.
> 
> Now, I'm quite sure everything is correctly linked, since runing emerge --newuse
> -Dvu world or revdep-rebuild answers : << nothing has to be done >>.
> 
> Now I try the dangerous following command as describe in the documentation :
> emerge --depclean -p (just to see what should be done)
> 
> And then I'm quite surprise, 41 packages should be removed, and among them, a
> lot of usefull lib or tool (perl-ldap, xinetd, and so on ...)
> 
> Is this result normal ? What did I miss ?
> 

Hi Sébastien,

It's normal for some packages to become unecessary as you update packages, unmerge packages, and change use flags.  Generally, it's best to do a depclean *before* packages are built (via direct emerge or revdep-rebuild).  Also, do a revdep-rebuild after a depclean.

Zac
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Re: [gentoo-user] Depclean

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 10:59:24 +0200, Sébastien MORAND wrote:

> Now I try the dangerous following command as describe in the
> documentation : emerge --depclean -p (just to see what should be done)
> 
> And then I'm quite surprise, 41 packages should be removed, and among
> them, a lot of usefull lib or tool (perl-ldap, xinetd, and so on ...)
> 
> Is this result normal ? What did I miss ?

This looks normal. For example, if you have -ldap in USE, you are
unlikely to need perl-ldap. Packages like these are generally only
installed as dependencies, they are not "end user" software, if nothing
needs them, they may as well be removed. 

You can run emerge world -uavDN and revdep-rebuild -p after removing
them, just to be certain your system is consistent.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Headline: "Explosion At Sperm Bank, Nurses Overcome"

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Re: [gentoo-user] Depclean

[Michael W. Holdeman]

On Friday 19 August 2005 06:08 am, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 10:59:24 +0200, Sébastien MORAND wrote:
> > Now I try the dangerous following command as describe in the
> > documentation : emerge --depclean -p (just to see what should be done)
> >
> > And then I'm quite surprise, 41 packages should be removed, and among
> > them, a lot of usefull lib or tool (perl-ldap, xinetd, and so on ...)
> >
> > Is this result normal ? What did I miss ?
>
> This looks normal. For example, if you have -ldap in USE, you are
> unlikely to need perl-ldap. Packages like these are generally only
> installed as dependencies, they are not "end user" software, if nothing
> needs them, they may as well be removed.
>
> You can run emerge world -uavDN and revdep-rebuild -p after removing
> them, just to be certain your system is consistent.

Where do we easily find a list of "necessary" files, system files etc... so we 
dont inaverdently remove them? For instance I am using udev for some time 
now, can I let depclean remove devfsd?

Mike
-- 
 
Michael W. Holdeman


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Re: [gentoo-user] Depclean

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 07:03:52 -0400, Michael W. Holdeman wrote:

> Where do we easily find a list of "necessary" files, system files
> etc... so we dont inaverdently remove them? For instance I am using
> udev for some time now, can I let depclean remove devfsd?

They will be defined in your profile, and therefore be a dependency
of system. Emerge will show you a big, scary warning if you try to remove
one. The reason depclean wants to remove devfsd is that system no longer
requires it, current profiles default to udev.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

I haven't lost my mind; it's backed up on tape somewhere.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Depclean

[Marco Matthies]

> dont inaverdently remove them? For instance I am using udev for some time 
> now, can I let depclean remove devfsd?

yes you can, at least i had no problems with that

Marco
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Re: [gentoo-user] Depclean

[Marco Matthies]

> And then I'm quite surprise, 41 packages should be removed, and among them, a
> lot of usefull lib or tool (perl-ldap, xinetd, and so on ...)
> 
> Is this result normal ? What did I miss ?

1. it might be old stuff that really isn't needed anymore, as already 
mentioned by others

2. portage up to a short while ago had a bug (or feature?!?) that when 
you emerged a package for the first time and used -u to do this, it 
would not be added to the world file. Nowadays it does the right thing 
and adds it to the world file if you use -u or not. This means that 
possibly some packages that you emerged yourself and weren't pulled in 
as dependencies by other packages in the world file are now regarded by 
--depclean as unnecessary, as they don't appear in the world file 
themselves and aren't dependencies of anything in there.

This means that you'll have to go through the list resulting from a 
'--depclean -p' and have to see if you truly wanted that package, and if 
yes, re-emerge that package or add it to the world file yourself.

Once you're done remerging the stuff you want to keep and have cleaned 
out the rest, it would probably be best to check that everything is ok 
with a revdep-rebuild

In the future though, everything should work fine just as you were doing it.

Marco
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