Yesterday I wrote about yum’s new feature which can automatically remove unused dependencies when a package is uninstalled.

Today I got my hands on a suitable build of yum (add the yum-rawhide repo and set clean_requirements_on_remove=1 under [main] in /etc/yum.conf) and I started to test it out on several packages, all of which introduced dependencies. My initial findings? It’s great.

Single package with dependencies
I started with a single package with several dependencies. When I uninstalled the parent package, yum also removed all of its dependencies which were not needed by any other package (i.e. orphaned dependencies).

Let’s look at an example; installing Ekiga which pulls in 5 dependencies.

yum install ekiga
...
Installed:
ekiga.x86_64 0:3.2.7-4.fc14
Dependency Installed:
evolution-data-server.x86_64 0:2.32.0-3.fc14 libgdata.x86_64 0:0.6.4-4.fc14 libgweather.x86_64 0:2.30.3-1.fc14 opal.x86_64 0:3.6.8-1.fc14
ptlib.x86_64 0:2.6.7-1.fc14


OK, so we have Ekiga, and we have 5 dependencies installed. What happens if I remove Ekiga?

yum erase ekiga
...
Removed:
ekiga.x86_64 0:3.2.7-4.fc14
Dependency Removed:
evolution-data-server.x86_64 0:2.32.0-3.fc14 libgdata.x86_64 0:0.6.4-4.fc14 libgweather.x86_64 0:2.30.3-1.fc14 opal.x86_64 0:3.6.8-1.fc14
ptlib.x86_64 0:2.6.7-1.fc14


As I was hoping, yum removed all 5 dependencies along with Ekiga itself. Ta da!

Result: Tick!

Packages with shared dependencies
I then tested two packages which have shared dependencies. What I would expect is that only the dependencies which are unique to the application being removed, are uninstalled. Other shared dependencies remain, because the other program still requires them and is not being removed.

Let’s look at an example; mplayer and vlc. Both require the libcaca library and installing both packages pulled in this library.
VLC needs libcaca:

yum deplist vlc |grep libcaca
dependency: libcaca.so.0()(64bit)
provider: libcaca.x86_64 0.99-0.10.beta17.fc14
dependency: libcaca.so.0()(64bit)
provider: libcaca.x86_64 0.99-0.10.beta17.fc14


And mplayer needs libcaca:

yum deplist mplayer |grep libcaca
dependency: libcaca.so.0()(64bit)
provider: libcaca.x86_64 0.99-0.10.beta17.fc14
dependency: libcaca.so.0()(64bit)
provider: libcaca.x86_64 0.99-0.10.beta17.fc14


When I want to remove mplayer, yum only removes those mplayer dependencies which vlc does not also require, and leaves the rest (including libcaca).


yum erase mplayer
...
Removed:
mplayer.x86_64 0:1.0-0.119.20100703svn.fc14
Dependency Removed:
libvdpau.x86_64 0:0.4.1-1.fc14.1 lzo.x86_64 0:2.03-3.fc12 mplayer-common.x86_64 0:1.0-0.119.20100703svn.fc14


Note that libcaca was not removed, which is the expected result.

Result: Tick!

Removing a package’s dependency
I then tried to remove a dependency, rather than the parent package. I would expect this to remove all parents which required that package, along with their other dependencies.

Let’s look at an example, gnash-plugin. This package pulls in three dependencies (including the actual gnash package).


yum install gnash-plugin
...
Installed:
gnash-plugin.x86_64 1:0.8.8-4.fc14
Dependency Installed:
agg.x86_64 0:2.5-9.fc13 gnash.x86_64 1:0.8.8-4.fc14 gtkglext-libs.x86_64 0:1.2.0-10.fc12

Now, let’s see what happens if I try and remove one of the dependencies.

yum erase agg
...
Removed:
agg.x86_64 0:2.5-9.fc13
Dependency Removed:
gnash.x86_64 1:0.8.8-4.fc14 gnash-plugin.x86_64 1:0.8.8-4.fc14 gtkglext-libs.x86_64 0:1.2.0-10.fc12


As you can see, it correctly removed the parent package, which could no-longer operate without the dependency.

This is such a great advancement over remove-leaves, where last time I tried to remove gnash-plugin (after testing it out, I didn’t want it) yum wanted to remove Firefox!! Fail.

Result: Tick!

Suggestion – clean up existing system
One thing I would like, is the ability to run a system wide cleanup using this code in yum, rather than other rpm orphan tools. Sort-of like an apt-get autoremove. Theoretically, if you’ve always removed any packages on your system with this new feature then you should be right, but it would be nice to sort-of do a clean up at any point (on any system) and get yum to remove any orphaned deps for you. Maybe this already exists.

If you want to clean up existing orphaned dependencies, then package-cleanup is your friend (from yum-utils).

Take a look at all the packages that are orphaned, and make sure it is sane.

package-cleanup --leaves


If you’re happy with the list, you can just remove them all (after you’ve enabled yum’s new autoremove feature, of course!):


yum erase $(package-cleanup --leaves)


You can instantly see the benefit of this new feature – on my machine this command also removes brand new orphaned dependencies, created by the orphans I’m removing! That’s 59 packages in total.

Without this yum feature, it would only remove 36 packages. You would need to run package-cleanup several times, until you’ve really removed all orphaned packages.

Similarly, this works for package-cleanup –orphans but it would be great it this was built into a single yum cleanup type function – one command to do it all.

Summary
From my initial testing, this works really well, although I’ll continue to test it and see how we go. Hopefully this will find its way into Fedora 12, 13, and 14 rather than just 15.

I’m so grateful for this work – it’s something I’ve been crying out for ever since I made the decision to stick with Fedora. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!