question about yum update, graphics packages

[Paul Howarth]

On Wed, 2006-06-28 at 14:46 -0500, Peter Horst wrote:
> I just tried my first 'yum update'.  The list of packages to be updated 
> included 'gtk2' and 'mesa-libGL', but the system that I'm updating was 
> installed without an X server.  Aren't those graphics packages?

Do bear in mind that X applications can be used over the network and
don't need a local X server to be useful.

> I am just curious as to why they would have been included during the 
> install process.  My impression was that 'yum update' would only update 
> packages that are currently installed on the machine - is this correct?  
> PS I'm not an anti-GUI fanatic, I'm just curious :-)

A "yum update" might install them on a system that didn't already have
them if they're new dependencies for something you do already have
installed.

You can first of all see if they're currently installed:

$ rpm -q gtk2 mesa-libGL

If they are, you can check what package(s) requires them by asking yum
to remove them:

# yum remove gtk2 mesa-libGL

You probably won't want to actually remove these packages, so be sure
not to use "yum -y" and be careful to respond "N" when prompted whether
to go ahead with the removal or not.

Paul.