Predictions for 2007 (and how I did on 2006) (LinuxWorld) [LWN.net]

Predictions for 2007 (and how I did on 2006) (LinuxWorld)

Posted Dec 27, 2006 0:57 UTC (Wed) by garglebutt (guest, #42419)
Parent article: Predictions for 2007 (and how I did on 2006) (LinuxWorld)

apt-get in Ubuntu Edgy Eft adds an 'autoremove' command that removes packages that are only dependents of uninstalled packages. The feature hasn't made it to debian yet.

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Predictions for 2007 (and how I did on 2006) (LinuxWorld)

Posted Dec 27, 2006 6:55 UTC (Wed) by static666 (guest, #42421) [Link]

Did you ever try:

apt-cache show deborphan

eh? It has been around for ages AFAIK.

funny

Posted Dec 27, 2006 8:49 UTC (Wed) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link]

"Everyone" talks about the better package management of Debian-based distributions compared to rpm-based ones. But essential features like removing no longer needed packages that were only installed as dependencies automatically is something hot and new? SUSE has had this for years now. Never thought about this as something special, just expected this to work.

funny

Posted Dec 27, 2006 9:25 UTC (Wed) by branden (subscriber, #7029) [Link]

While I will quibble with your characterization of the feature as "essential" (essential to what? running a GNU/Linux OS? Hardly that.), Debian's had it for years, too, though. The aptitude package manager has had it at least since February of 2002, so that's nearly 5 years ago. I determined this based on the package changelog, which reports a bug fixed in the feature back then:

aptitude (0.2.9.4-2) unstable; urgency=high  
  
  * Backported a fix from CVS for a nasty interaction when the user  
  tried to follow Suggests and remove unused packages at the same time.  
    This doesn't fix all the issues, but it gets rid of the most  
  immediate problem.  A more complete fix may be hashed out in the future.  
    (Closes: #135956)  
  
 -- Daniel Burrows <dburrows@debian.org>  Wed, 27 Feb 2002 09:12:18 
-0500

deborphan, which doesn't impose itself on the user automatically, but does exist and which could have been automated via a cron job or bolted into apt-get's operation via /etc/apt/apt.conf.d, was initially released by Peter Palfrader on 3 June 2000 (so, over 6 and a half years ago).

Are these examples old enough for you? :)

thank you

Posted Dec 27, 2006 10:19 UTC (Wed) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link]

Don't look too closely at my choice of words. English is not my native language and my brain still refuses to power up to full strength today (that is: need more coffee...)

But thanks for clarifying. I was really puzzled that the supposedly better package manager would not have that simple feature.

thank you

Posted Dec 27, 2006 19:17 UTC (Wed) by jhs (subscriber, #12429) [Link]

Indeed. And, that SUSE put the feature at all its users' fingertips is commendable.