Yum - Removal of dependant packages.

[Tim]

ded:
>> Does Yum not remove dependant packages or did I need to do more than
>> Yum remove <package>?

Paul Howarth:
> You need to remove the dependent packages yourself. The rpm database 
> does not contain any information on which packages are installed as 
> dependencies, so there is no way for yum to know what to remove.

What was the issue about, then, when someone tried using yum to remove
some program, and lots of other things disappearing along with it as
well?

e.g. the "Manage software with yum" thread from 22 November, 2005,
     Message-ID: <43834A29.9070101 at warmcat.com>:
------------ begin snippet -------------
Andy Green:
> You can use yum remove, but it seems a bit dangerous.  It sometimes
> seems to suggest to remove dependent packages that are actually still
> wanted.
------------ end snippet -------------

When you go to remove an RPM, it'll not let you if doing so will remove
a dependency for something else.  So that's looking at dependencies in
one direction.

When you install a RPM, the package lists what it depends on
(dependencies in the other direction).  A program could automatically
ask about removing them, when you try removing that package.

While that's not in the RPM database, but in the RPMs themselves, it
ought to be do-able - at least with packages that don't have
dependencies upon dependencies.

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