yum - Remove unused packages - Fedora - Unix &...

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Remove unused packages - Fedora

I have installed some rpm package on my fedora 17. Some packages had a lot of dependencies. I have removed some packages but I
forgot remove unused dependencies with yum remove.
How can I do that now?
Many thanks!
/ fedora

/ yum

/ rpm

edited Jun 6 '12 at 23:53 asked Jun 6 '12 at 19:03

Gilles
mudlee
174k

22

214

462

Have you looked at the yum manpage: linux.die.net/man/8/yum ? Linuxios Jun 6 '12 at 19:22

duplicate of: unix.stackexchange.com/questions/23330/ maxschlepzig Nov 17 '12 at 18:01

migrated from stackoverflow.com Jun 6 '12 at 23:44

This question came from our site for professional and enthusiast programmers.

3 Answers
It's not easy. How do you differentiate between "a file that was required by something I have
since removed" from "a file that is not required by anything else that I really want"?
You can use the package-cleanup command from the yum-utils package to list "leaf nodes"
in your package dependency graph. These are packages that can be removed without
affecting anything else:
$ package-cleanup --leaves

This will produce a list of "libraries" on which nothing else depends. In most cases you can
safely remove these packages. If you add --all to the command line:
$ package-cleanup --leaves --all

You'll get packages that aren't considered libraries, also, but this list is going to be so long that
it probably won't be useful.
answered Jun 6 '12 at 19:32
larsks
2,193

10

Thank you very mutch! mudlee Jun 6 '12 at 19:46

APT (the Debian equivalent of Yum) has a notion of automatically installed package. If a package wasn't explicitly
requested but only pulled in as a dependency, it'll be automatically removed (with a confirmation prompt) if the
packages that depend on it are all removed. Without an indication of this type, it is indeed not easy. Gilles Jun 6
'12 at 23:53

If you install a package with

dependencies:

yum install

, say

pdftk

, it will pull in a lot of

Installed:
pdftk.x86_64 0:1.44-10.fc18
Dependency Installed:
bouncycastle.noarch 0:1.46-6.fc18
itext-core.noarch 0:2.1.7-14.fc18
libgcj.x86_64 0:4.7.2-8.fc18
bouncycastle-mail.noarch 0:1.46-6.fc18
java-1.5.0-gcj.x86_64 0:1.5.0.0-40.fc18
sinjdoc.x86_64 0:0.5-13.fc18
bouncycastle-tsp.noarch 0:1.46-5.fc18
java_cup.noarch 1:0.11a-10.fc18

1 of 2

01/04/2014 12:48 AM

yum - Remove unused packages - Fedora - Unix &...

http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/40179/...

itext.x86_64 0:2.1.7-14.fc18
javamail.noarch 0:1.4.3-12.fc18
Complete!
yum remove pdftk

will remove only that package and not all the dependencies.

But you can look at all the 'transactions' (install, remove etc.):
$ sudo yum history list pdftk
ID

| Command line

| Date and time

| Action(s)

| Altered

------------------------------------------------------------------------------88 | install pdftk

| 2012-12-14 13:35 | Install

11

And then you can undo that transaction:

$ sudo yum history undo 88
Undoing transaction 88, from Fri Dec 14 13:35:34 2012
Dep-Install bouncycastle-1.46-6.fc18.noarch

@fedora

Dep-Install bouncycastle-mail-1.46-6.fc18.noarch

@fedora

Dep-Install bouncycastle-tsp-1.46-5.fc18.noarch

@fedora

Dep-Install itext-2.1.7-14.fc18.x86_64

@fedora

Dep-Install itext-core-2.1.7-14.fc18.noarch

@fedora

Dep-Install java-1.5.0-gcj-1.5.0.0-40.fc18.x86_64 @fedora

Dep-Install java_cup-1:0.11a-10.fc18.noarch

@fedora

Dep-Install javamail-1.4.3-12.fc18.noarch

@fedora

Dep-Install libgcj-4.7.2-8.fc18.x86_64

@fedora

Install

@fedora

pdftk-1.44-10.fc18.x86_64

Dep-Install sinjdoc-0.5-13.fc18.x86_64

@fedora

...
Complete!

answered Dec 14 '12 at 14:13

Your Mom
99

-1 Poor quality cept0 Oct 10 '13 at 14:19

Starting from Fedora 18, you can simply use this command
yum autoremove

or
yum remove --setopt=clean_requirements_on_remove=1

You can also apply autoremove command with specific package

yum autoremove <package>

Which will remove unneeded dependencies from that installed package. autoremove is very
much an aliais of "remove --setopt=clean_requirements_on_remove=1" but for some reasons,
is still undocumented.
answered Jul 17 '13 at 20:07
Finalzone
21

+1 Nice and easy cept0 Oct 10 '13 at 14:17

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