[Closed] Orphans, delete them at your peril

[rodgoslin]

I've just done something incredibly stupid. Ans what is worse, this is the second time I've done it. I've issued the command 'urpme --auto-orphans. The sight of all those orphaned files, after an update offends me, despite assurances that they're ok where they are, and thes's plenty of room in the system partition, I yearn to remover them. The last time I did this, about a third of the entire install went with them, and much of the rest was broken. I'd watched appalled as all the files scrolled past into oblivion. I had to re-install the whole thing again, from scratch and spend hours as the system updated again. This time, there was only a short list, and I scrutinised the whole lot before committing myself.. Five minutes later, I realised that I'd done it again. Konqueror, my file manager of choice, had suddenly decided that the View Mode I really wanted to see was something called FSview. Thousands (seemingly) of coloured rectangles, mostly without names, instead of the neatly ordered rows of names and details. I could never understand why Konqueror was reduced to the ranks in favour of Dolphin. In my view a far too simplistic device with seeming few of the useful attributes of konqueror. So this I use, despite it being now more difficult to set up as one would like it. Now, I discovered that of all the view options, I now only have terminal emulator, FS view and Cervisia. Terminal emulator is of little point, Cervisia I long ago learnt that it was a sure fire way of crashing the whole machine. And what FSview is supposed to do, I've no idea. Now, suddenly, after two cups of tea, and a round of toast and marmalde, and this rant. Konqueror is restored back to it's glorious self, without my having to lift a finger. I can now re-de-install Dolphin, that I'd re-installed as something that at least did show me the files.. But, I shall never, never, never again delete an orphaned package.

Rod Goslin

[macxi]

I shall never, never, never again delete an orphaned package.
Rod Goslin

Wiki Mageia - Removing packages: https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Removing_packages#Warning

"Lots of newbies have caused serious damage to their installation because they paid attention to the pop up window rpmdrake shows after deleting a package about removing orphans. I for one wish that rpmdrake hid the existence of the urpme --auto-orphans option".

Maybe it's good to think any suggestions about it for Mageia 4

[Lebarhon]

Wiki Mageia - Removing packages: https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Removing_packages#Warning

"Lots of newbies have caused serious damage to their installation because they paid attention to the pop up window rpmdrake shows after deleting a package about removing orphans. I for one wish that rpmdrake hid the existence of the urpme --auto-orphans option".

Maybe it's good to think any suggestions about it for Mageia 4

I agree, I also had problems with this command and we are trying to make Mageia 4 newcomers friendly.

[daniewicz]

But, I shall never, never, never again delete an orphaned package.

Amen Brother!

[Ken-Bergen]

As

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urpme --auto-orphans

can only be run as root it's your responsibility to decide if it will break your system.
Also the prompt after running is

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 Remove XX packages? (y/N)

You as administrator have to type a Y then press enter to over ride the (y/N) prompt.

Also the message I see is

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 The following packages:
  x
 x1
 x2
etc.
are now orphaned, if you wish to remove them, you can use "urpme --auto-orphans"

Note the "if you wish to remove them"
As I see it it's a good tool and if you as administrator are paying attention very safe.

Again it's up to you as administrator to look and decide not just override the (y/N) prompt.

[oldcodger]

Here, here, Ken. If it's used properly the tool is very useful for getting rid of orphans. As you say the control is in the hands of root and root must decide to override the (y/N) prompt.
Whenever I get a huge list of suggested orphans I take a copy of the list so that if my system breaks because I removed something vital I can quite easily put it back. Having said that I would NOT remove a whole bunch without inspecting the list first. There usually is a clue or two in the list, all one has to do is hit return in response to the command and nothing will be removed.

[Lebarhon]

I take a copy of the list so that if my system breaks because I removed something vital I can quite easily put it back.

You got it here, the command isn't safe since before the command execution, you can't know what will happen, you can only be ready for repairs and wait and see for the damages. For any other command, you know what will happen before its execution, fortunately.

[oldcodger]

I can think of a few commands when executed in a root console that are just as dangerous if one isn't careful. At least the default answer to the --auto-orphans command is [y/N]. One has to deliberately enter Y for the answer. If I make a cock up it is my fault.

[Ken-Bergen]

You got it here, the command isn't safe since before the command execution, you can't know what will happen, you can only be ready for repairs and wait and see for the damages. For any other command, you know what will happen before its execution, fortunately.

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urpme --auto-orphans

Tells you exactly whats going to happen.
It lists all the packages that will be removed if you over ride the (y/N) prompt.
If you as root/administrator are not up to the job of reading the list and deciding if there is a problem then don't use the tool.
It's as simple as that.

[Lebarhon]

You are insincere there, don't tell me you have every package dependences in mind!
As said in the wiki, if you uninstall Okular for example,

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urpme --auto-orphans

will erase the whole kde4!

https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Removing_packages#Warning

[doktor5000]

What's your point here? Why do you want to run auto-orphans in the first place?
If you know how it works, it's fine to clean up sometimes, but if you don't, why bother?

That example you brought up with task-kde is a classic one - and more, why would one want to uninstall okular?

Please don't start this useless discussion again, if you want to change something, put up a bugreport
or start a followup to https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=920
Probably the best thing would be to completely hide this message by default, in rpmdrake as in urpmi.

[Lebarhon]

Hello Doktor,

Please don't start this useless discussion again,

That is your own point of view, even if you are right, it's harmless.

[doktor5000]

Nope it's not. Either you leave it like it is, or you want to change it, then in both cases another dicussion about it is totally useless and a waste of time.
The problem is known, you can easily create a new bug for this and add a patch what your proposal for improvement would be.
But the discussion is just useless and a waste of time, simple as that.

[rodgoslin]

As the good Doktor says, there's little point in continuing the discussion. If it was discussed before and nothing was done, there's no point in bringing it up again. So far as I'm concerned, they can set up an orphanage in the OS partition. There's plentty of room. It does however, seem to be rather un-proessional to me.