Re: Obsessed with a clean system
On Wed, 2004-08-11 at 04:04, Tong Sun wrote:
> Looking at the packages I installed, I know there
> would be lots of them that I will never use. E.g.,
>
> kscreensaver ktux xscreensaver kdewallpapers atlantik
> atlantikdesigner gnome-games gnome-games-data katomic
> kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kdegames
> kdegames-card-data kenolaba kfouleggs kgoldrunner
> khangman kjumpingcube klickety kmahjongg kmessedwords
> kolf konquest kpat ksirtet ksmiletris ksokoban
> kspaceduel libgdkcardimage0 libkdegames1 libkpathsea3
> lskat
>
> I don't want them, but I have to keep them. This to me
> is a huge list.
You do not have to keep them.
> I used to remove all files in unwanted rpm packages in
> RH, leaving only empty shells in the system. Anybody
> has done similar things in Debian?
olly@linda$ sudo apt-get -u remove kbattleship
Password:
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
kbattleship kde kde-amusements kdegames
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 4 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 963kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] n
Abort.
olly@linda$ dpkg -L kde
/.
/usr
/usr/share
/usr/share/doc
/usr/share/doc/kde
/usr/share/doc/kde/README.Debian
/usr/share/doc/kde/copyright
/usr/share/doc/kde/changelog.gz
olly@linda$ dpkg -L kde-amusements
/.
/usr
/usr/share
/usr/share/doc
/usr/share/doc/kde-amusements
/usr/share/doc/kde-amusements/README.Debian
/usr/share/doc/kde-amusements/copyright
/usr/share/doc/kde-amusements/changelog.gz
olly@linda$ dpkg -L kdegames
/.
/usr
/usr/share
/usr/share/doc
/usr/share/doc/kdegames
/usr/share/doc/kdegames/AUTHORS
/usr/share/doc/kdegames/README
/usr/share/doc/kdegames/copyright
/usr/share/doc/kdegames/changelog.gz
/usr/share/doc/kdegames/changelog.Debian.gz
So you see that those three reverse dependencies are actually dummy
packages. Their only purpose is to cause other packages to be
installed.
You can safely allow them to be removed, so far as the current operation
of your system is concerned. It might in the future lead to some
hiccups; for example, if a new and necessary dependency were to be added
to kde, you would miss it. Arguably, that would be added at the wrong
level, though.
--
Oliver Elphick olly@lfix.co.uk
Isle of Wight http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
GPG: 1024D/A54310EA 92C8 39E7 280E 3631 3F0E 1EC0 5664 7A2F A543 10EA
========================================
"Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they
carry out their wicked schemes."
Psalms 37:7
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