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?
Answers:
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Method 1
If you install a package with yum install, say pdftk, it will pull in a lot of dependencies:
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 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 pdftk-1.44-10.fc18.x86_64 @fedora
Dep-Install sinjdoc-0.5-13.fc18.x86_64 @fedora
...
Complete!
Method 2
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 alias of remove --setopt=clean_requirements_on_remove=1 but for some reasons, is still undocumented.
Method 3
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.
Method 4
I took larsks answer one step farther.
$ package-cleanup -q --leaves | xargs -l1 yum -y remove
This grabs all of the dependencies that can be removed without affecting anything else and then removes them. Better then going through one by one.
“-q” is useful on some systems which print “Setting up yum” otherwise, causing this command to remove yum. And that’s not what you want.
Method 5
In newer Fedoras with dnf, you can use dnf repoquery --unneeded as a replacement for package-cleanup --leaves.
All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0