Manage software with yum

[Joao Paulo Pires]

Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 13:15:30 +0000 


 

From: James Wilkinson <fedora at westexe.demon.co.uk> 


 

Subject: Re: Manage software with yum 


 

 


 

Joao Paulo Pires wrote: 


 

> Manage software with yum - I am end user (home user). I already 


 

> installed some stuff like: Xine, Xmms, Mplayer, Skype, NVU, aMule and 


 

> others. Some with yum commands, other directly from repositories with 


 

> the problem of dependencies. How can I delete some unnecessary software? 


 

> I mean really eliminate. Each time I try with yum I am not well succeed. 


 

> Any help? 


 

> 


 

Paul Howarth replied: 


 

> Please be more specific. What are you trying to delete, and what goes 


 

> wrong when you try? 


 

 


 

Joao said: 


 

> In fact what I'm looking for is what files should I delete (e.g. lost 


 

> files, unneccessary files or programs and programs I do not use 


 

> anymore). 


 

 


 

Are you "in the quest for a tidy system", or just trying to recover disk 


 

space? 


 

 


 

One of the big users of disk space is yum's cache. The command 


 

yum clean packages 


 

will delete the cache of packages that yum has downloaded (normally it 


 

stores a copy of everything it downloads). The command 


 

yum clean all 


 

deletes everything yum has deleted, which means it will have to 


 

re-download headers next time you do a yum update. 


 

 


 

You can also clear out stuff in /tmp: the worst you can do is have to 


 

log out and in again. 


 

 


 

If you want to see where disk space has gone, try running 


 

du -sm /* 2>/dev/null 


 

The output looks like: 


 

8 /bin 


 

31 /boot 


 

1 /dev 


 

66 /etc 


 

1648 /home 


 

402 /lib 


 

etc. 


 

The numbers are the size in megabytes. Ignore /dev, /proc and /sys: 


 

they're virtual filesystems that don't actually appear on disk. /home is 


 

your home directory: you should know what everything in there is. 


 

 


 

Most programs are under /usr. You can take a look in the subdirectories 


 

of (say) /var with 


 

du -sm /var/* 2>/dev/null 


 

 


 

Hopefully you'll have installed all your programs from RPM: using 


 

anything else is a recipe for confusion at best and an uninstallable 


 

program or an unstable system at worst. 


 

 


 

I'd be wary of deleting programs you don't know about, or think you 


 

don't use. You might think, for example, you never use something with a 


 

name like "e2fsprogs". But you need the programs to check your disks, 


 

especially if you get a disk or filesystem error. 


 

 


 

As it happens, if you try removing e2fsprogs, you'll get error messages 


 

telling you hundreds of packages depend on it. This is A Good Thing, and 


 

the packaging system working as needed. If you go ahead and remove those 


 

packages, on the other hand, you'll get a broken system. 


 

 


 

So, as I say, don't delete RPMs you don't know about. 


 

 


 

If you want a list of candidates, I'd start with running 


 

rpm -qa --queryformat "%{NAME} %{GROUP}\n" | grep Amusements/ 


 

and *some* of the programs from 


 

rpm -qa --queryformat "%{NAME} %{GROUP}\n" | grep Applications/Multimedia 


 

 


 

Take a look at them, work out what the RPMs are (rpm -qi xmms is good 


 

for this), and see if you can delete them without taking RPMs you don't 


 

know about or do want with you. 


 

 


 

Meanwhile, for what it's worth, the standard on this list is to trim 


 

e-mails down to what's relevant to your reply, and answer underneath. 


 

 


 

Hope this helps, 


 

 


 

James. 


 

-- 


 

E-mail address: james | 'In a serial interface, the data bits move down a 


 

@westexe.demon.co.uk | single channel one after the other, like railway 


 

| trains. This is different from the parallel interface 


 

| in which groups of bits arrive together, like London 


 

| buses.' -- 'The Computer Dictionary', Jon Wedge
------------------------
I just try manage my disk space, by deleting cache, unnecessary software and old kernels. The kernels I mentioned other thread is standard kernels (Fedora kernels). My question is how can I delete/remove this issues in a safe and correct way. I don't want leave dead files. Best regards, Joao.
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