[issue37] Debfoster like package removal

[Daniel Arnold at Labix Tracker]

New submission from Daniel Arnold <arnomane at gmx.de>:

With Debfoster [1] from Debian it is possible to get a list of packages that         
are on top of all other depending packages and to delete such a top package        
with all its dependencies that are only installed because of this "top        
package".       
        
This is _very_ helpfull to keep the system clean as none remembers at       
uninstall all libs and other packages that were installed because of this       
(e.g. you have let's say KDE installed and now you install one Gnome app but       
you remove it some time later, now all gnomelibs are still sitting there       
although you don't need them). 
       
If this feature could be included in SmartPM this would be a great usability       
enhancement as dealing with hundreds of packages is often said to be one of       
the shortcommings on Linux (beside the time you save not doing this all      
manually).      
 
There is another tool at Debian with almost the same purpose called Deborphan     
[2], which is specialised in removing unused library packages.       
    
The only tool doing that job for RPM's is to my knowledge Rpmorphan [3].   
   
All theses tools are command line tools, so it would be a killer feature for   
SmartPM compared to other graphical package managers if it includes such a   
feature. 
   
I envision a a special uninstall page in SmartPM (for single packages you have  
install uninstall in one window) for that purpose and give the user the  
possibility removing all top packages with dependencies via a single mouse  
click as it is now with single packages. This would also be great for  
unexperienced users as they don't get confused with a huge list of installed  
packages. They are mostly interested in an application and not the libraries  
an app also needs.  
        
Greetings,  
Arnomane  
  
[1] http://www.fruit.je/debfoster/       
[2] http://packages.debian.org/deborphan    
[3] http://penguinppc.org/~jeramy/rpmorphan/

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messages: 84
nosy: Arnomane
priority: wish
project: smart
status: unread
title: Debfoster like package removal

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Labix issue tracker <tracker at labix.org>
<http://tracker.labix.org/issue37>
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