clean your world file

[blubberbaer]

Dear all,

while waiting for one gentoo box to finish with updating, i've decided to take care of my old work horse.

Following

viewtopic-t-1042252-start-11.html

i used the script from @Irre to sort out my /var/lib/portage/world file, which is kind of big.

If i understand the functioning of the script correctly, every package which would be cleaned out by emerge -p --depclean <package> should stay in the world file. Everything else "can be" removed.

I do know, that it is more or less up to me, what can be in there and what can be removed.

the results of the script:

"deselectable" packages:

app-admin/syslog-ng
app-arch/cabextract
app-arch/p7zip
app-arch/rpm2targz
app-arch/unzip
app-cdr/cdrdao
app-crypt/gnupg
app-crypt/pinentry
app-dicts/aspell-de
app-dicts/aspell-en
app-dicts/myspell-de
app-dicts/myspell-en
app-editors/vim-core
app-emulation/libvirt
app-emulation/qemu
app-eselect/eselect-fontconfig
app-i18n/enca
app-i18n/man-pages-l10n
app-misc/lirc
app-shells/bash
app-shells/gentoo-bashcomp
app-text/aspell
app-text/docbook-sgml-utils
app-text/ghostscript-gpl
app-text/xmlto
dev-cpp/atkmm
dev-cpp/pangomm:1.4
dev-java/commons-logging
dev-java/java-config
dev-java/xml-commons-resolver
dev-lang/mono
dev-lang/nasm
dev-lang/ocaml
dev-lang/perl
dev-lang/rust
dev-lang/tk
dev-perl/XML-Parser
dev-tcltk/expect
dev-tex/biber
dev-tex/pgf
dev-texlive/texlive-fontsrecommended
dev-util/cmake
dev-util/gdbus-codegen
dev-util/patchelf
dev-util/scons
dev-vcs/git
gnome-base/librsvg
gnome-extra/yelp-xsl
mail-client/mailx
mail-mta/ssmtp
media-fonts/corefonts
media-fonts/dejavu
media-fonts/encodings
media-fonts/font-alias
media-fonts/font-misc-misc
media-fonts/font-util
media-fonts/liberation-fonts
media-fonts/urw-fonts
media-gfx/gimp
media-gfx/sane-backends
media-gfx/xv
media-libs/mesa
media-sound/alsa-utils
media-sound/id3v2
media-sound/lame
media-sound/mpg123
media-video/rtmpdump
net-analyzer/traceroute
net-dns/dnsmasq
net-firewall/iptables
net-fs/nfs-utils
net-fs/samba
net-libs/gnutls
net-libs/libnsl
net-libs/nodejs
net-mail/mailbase
net-misc/netifrc
net-misc/openssh
net-nds/openldap
net-nds/rpcbind
net-print/cups
net-print/cups-filters
sci-libs/cholmod
sci-libs/lapack
sys-apps/attr
sys-apps/dbus
sys-apps/dmidecode
sys-apps/help2man
sys-apps/keyutils
sys-apps/kmod
sys-apps/lsb-release
sys-apps/openrc
sys-apps/pciutils
sys-apps/shadow
sys-apps/smartmontools
sys-apps/sysvinit
sys-apps/texinfo
sys-apps/xinetd
sys-auth/pambase
sys-auth/polkit
sys-boot/syslinux
sys-devel/bc
sys-devel/binutils
sys-devel/flex
sys-devel/gdb
sys-devel/gettext
sys-devel/libtool
sys-devel/llvm
sys-fs/udev-init-scripts
sys-kernel/linux-firmware
sys-libs/binutils-libs
sys-libs/glibc
sys-libs/gpm
sys-libs/libcap
sys-libs/ncurses
sys-libs/readline
sys-process/cronie
www-servers/apache
x11-apps/mkfontscale
x11-apps/xfontsel
x11-apps/xinit
x11-apps/xlsfonts
x11-apps/xmessage
x11-apps/xrandr
x11-base/xorg-drivers
x11-base/xorg-server
x11-terms/rxvt-unicode
x11-wm/windowmaker

For me it confusing that there are a lot of sys-*/* and dev-lang/* packages on the list. I do have a machine with a very small set of packages
and the world lists only the following sys-* packages

sys-apps/mlocate
sys-apps/pciutils
sys-apps/systemd-tmpfiles
sys-block/parted
sys-boot/grub:2
sys-fs/btrfs-progs
sys-fs/dosfstools
sys-fs/jfsutils
sys-fs/reiserfsprogs
sys-fs/xfsprogs
sys-kernel/gentoo-sources
sys-kernel/gentoo-sources:5.10.52
sys-process/cronie
sys-process/htop

Thus i'm wondering which of the sys-* packages can be savely deselected with emerge --deselect.

Many thanks in advance,

blubberbaer

[NeddySeagoon]

blubberbaer,

A few random examples.

Code: Select all

app-shells/bash 

in in the @system set and should not be in world.

Code: Select all

dev-lang/rust

should be a dependency of something that needs rust to build.

More completely, as several packages can provide rust, packages that need rust depend on virtual/rust.
That in turn prefers dev-lang/rust but dev-lang/rust-bin works too.
It should not be in world.

Code: Select all

sys-devel/libtool
sys-devel/flex 
sys-fs/udev-init-scripts 
sys-libs/glibc 
sys-libs/readline 

and others are all system set members.

Do you still use sys-apps/xinetd ?
You probably shouldn't.

You probably want to keep

Code: Select all

app-admin/syslog-ng 
app-crypt/gnupg
app-emulation/libvirt
app-emulation/qemu
sys-apps/pciutils
sys-apps/smartmontools
sys-boot/syslinux 

and others. That last one is your boot loader :)

x11-base/xorg-drivers in installed because of VIDEO_CARDS and INPUT_DEVICES it should not be in world.

That's by no means a complete list.

[pjp]

Thus i'm wondering which of the sys-* packages can be savely deselected with emerge --deselect.

Are there any on the list that you know you want? If so, remove them from the list.

Regarding the dev-lang, do you or may you have thought you wanted to write code with them? If not, check if they're a dependency of something else:
emerge -cvp <packagename>

-c safely tries to uninstall the package
-p only pretends to do so
-v will tell you what depends on the package, if anything

For example, I have dev-scheme/racket installed. Portage tells me that it is a dependency of app-editors/vim. This is only partly true. I installed racket and added the racket USE flag to vim.

Regarding app-shells/bash and the @system set that NeddySeagoon mentioned, emerge -cvp will show you that it is required by @system (probably among other things). That should help you go through the list. If @system requires it, it doesn't need to be in world.

For the sys-* packages, it depends. Several look likely to be part of the @system set. Other look like packages you probably wanted installed at one time or another... dmidecode, pciutils, parted, cronie, htop.

Check the descriptions of the packages to help determine if you want them. For example: emerge -s sys-apps/dmidecode$ (the $ at the end tells portage to look for the specific package, more or less).

If you're not sure, keep it, then come back with the hopefully much smaller list.

[charles17]

Dear all,

while waiting for one gentoo box to finish with updating, i've decided to take care of my old work horse.

Following

viewtopic-t-1042252-start-11.html

i used the script from @Irre [...]

Wikification: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Vauka ... p_it_clean