Linux Format forums

Re: Mandriva 2009 the one?

ollie — Fri Oct 31, 2008 12:20 am

Author: ollie

Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 12:20 am

Rhakios wrote:

Hmm, I'm not sure that's entirely the case. The one time it happened I hadn't removed any software, only installed some (as mentioned above, some KDE stuff on an XFCE desktop).

Marrea wrote:

And in my case all I did was install vlc and I was then advised to remove 160 orphans, three of which were dolphin, kdm and konqueror. I realise there's a lot I still need to learn about the inner workings of Linux package management, but I'm not quite sure why installing a media player requires the removal of a file manager.

Hi Adam,

I understand what you are getting at but the posts by Rhakios and Marrea seem to suggest it is a much deeper problem. They had added software/packages using the Mandriva package manager which caused the "orphans" message.

The problem seems to be that packages are only linked to one package as a dependency, when in fact there are other packages that are dependant on them. KDE is really dependant on Dolphin, Konqueror and kdm (K Desktop Manager).

Re: Mandriva 2009 the one?

Marrea — Thu Oct 30, 2008 9:32 pm

Author: Marrea

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 9:32 pm

And in my case all I did was install vlc and I was then advised to remove 160 orphans, three of which were dolphin, kdm and konqueror. I realise there's a lot I still need to learn about the inner workings of Linux package management, but I'm not quite sure why installing a media player requires the removal of a file manager.

Re: Mandriva 2009 the one?

Rhakios — Thu Oct 30, 2008 9:18 pm

Author: Rhakios

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 9:18 pm

Hmm, I'm not sure that's entirely the case. The one time it happened I hadn't removed any software, only installed some (as mentioned above, some KDE stuff on an XFCE desktop).

Re: Mandriva 2009 the one?

AdamW — Thu Oct 30, 2008 8:54 pm

Author: AdamW

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 8:54 pm

There wasn't, technically speaking, any bug. (Well, there's *possibly* a bug in which some update cases a task- package to be removed, but we're not sure about that one yet).

What happens is that, if the task- package for an environment is removed, all the packages for that environment become orphans. This isn't actually a bug - it's exactly what's supposed to happen. Nothing is doing the wrong thing - it's just that the right thing turns out to be a silly thing.

It's easy to cause the task- package for a DE to be removed...say, you have GNOME installed, but you don't want totem, or something. As task-gnome depends on totem, removing totem causes task-gnome to be removed. This would normally have no consequences, because task-gnome is just a metapackage. However, with the orphans feature, it causes everything that task-gnome depends on to become an orphan. This isn't a bug: they really *are* orphans. They were installed as a dependency of task-gnome , and task-gnome got removed, so now they're orphans. It's just...not necessarily what we really want to happen

We are pushing updates to address this by converting almost all the dependencies of the task- packages to be suggests instead of requires. suggests don't get orphaned, so this will mostly avoid the problem occurring. If it turns out that there's still problematic orphan behaviour in some cases, we will disable the "run --auto-orphan now and break your system!" message being displayed by default, which will hide the issue.

But, the important point is that there's no actual bug in urpmi's orphan handling. It does exactly what it's intended to do. We just didn't grok that the intended behaviour would not be the *desired* behaviour in some cases, until it started happening.

Re: Mandriva 2009 the one?

ollie — Wed Oct 29, 2008 11:56 am

Author: ollie

Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2008 11:56 am

It's interesting that a package manager would break a functioning system by "incorrectly" identifying orphan packages that are dependencies for other installed software. It really indicates that urpmi is broken and not suitable for a production environment. (Sorry Adam - it seems that Mandriva just has this history of being broken or not quite finished.)

Re: Mandriva 2009 the one?

Rhakios — Tue Oct 28, 2008 10:51 pm

Author: Rhakios

Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 10:51 pm

Well, Marrea it was in part the fact that I recalled what you wrote about VLC that made me go ahead with accepting the recommendations, the VMWare install was for testing, after all. The fact that it seemed to work just fine the first time of the three no doubt inspired me with a degree of over-confidence on the subsequent occasions. But the we go, one does not learn anything without taking chances.
No doubt if Mandriva were still my main OS, I'd be as regular a visitor to their forums as I used to be, but as it is, I'm not. Still, it's good to see that Adam is still so active in forwarding users' experiences to the developers; employing him is probably one of the better decisions they have made in the recent years.

Re: Mandriva 2009 the one?

Marrea — Tue Oct 28, 2008 10:09 pm

Author: Marrea

Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 10:09 pm

You will see here that Adam has taken action on this.

Re: Mandriva 2009 the one?

Marrea — Tue Oct 28, 2008 9:54 pm

Author: Marrea

Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 9:54 pm

Rhakios wrote:

Do not, except with extreme care, run "urpme --auto-orphans" after the software installer suggests it.

Marrea wrote:

(post of 17th October) Um, so what's all this about when you install a package?

"The following packages are now orphans, use "urpme --auto-orphans" to remove them"

I installed vlc today and a list of approx. 160 packages appeared which I was advised to remove. Is that right? I haven't removed them because it looked like half the system would disappear if I did.

I am extremely glad I followed my instincts here and didn't run the command.

Re: Mandriva 2009 the one?

spaceyhase — Tue Oct 28, 2008 9:49 pm

Author: spaceyhase

Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 9:49 pm

^ This man speaketh the truth. I've got Xfce on my eee and --auto-orphans wanted to remove it and bust everything >_<

Re: Mandriva 2009 the one?

Rhakios — Tue Oct 28, 2008 8:42 pm

Author: Rhakios

Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 8:42 pm

Ahem! Well, as it seems from the LXF newsletter that I'm providing "some technical information" on installing Mandriva 2009, I have a tip I'd like to add for when running it. Do not, except with extreme care, run "urpme --auto-orphans" after the software installer suggests it. I have tried it three times, and twice it has killed the desktop I've been using.
I'm not sure exactly what procedure it uses for assessing what is an orphan, but from what I can tell, it seems that if you install a substantial amount of software for an alternate desktop (say you are running XFCE and install some KDE components) it gets rid of packages essential to running your original desktop.
If it can't be trusted on this, then I don't really see that it can be trusted with other package patterns either.
If you aren't all that knowledgeable about what might or might not be essential, and are not confident about restoring things from the command-line, then just say no!

Re: Mandriva 2009 the one?

Rhakios — Sun Oct 19, 2008 9:49 am

Author: Rhakios

Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2008 9:49 am

HINTERG wrote:

easy configurability.

Like KDE3.x, XFCE can be made to work the way I want it to.

Re: Mandriva 2009 the one?

HINTERG — Sun Oct 19, 2008 8:39 am

Author: HINTERG

Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2008 8:39 am

Raikos, surprised to see you say the X desktop is your second fav after K3. Surely they could not be more different? I have to say that, from my perspective, I have gotten over the wow factor of Compiz/gnome, and am liking X more and more for its snappy performance, low footprint, and easy configurability. Simple fact is, it does not get in the way!

Re: Mandriva 2009 the one?

Marrea — Sat Oct 18, 2008 5:45 pm

Author: Marrea

Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 5:45 pm

spaceyhase wrote:

Hmm, my wifi is still a little odd.

I am so glad my network is of the good old wired variety.

Re: Mandriva 2009 the one?

Marrea — Sat Oct 18, 2008 5:42 pm

Author: Marrea

Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 5:42 pm

ollie wrote:

Hi Marrea I'm only guessing, because installing vlc from a non-default repository has a similar effect on other distros, that most of the "orphans" relate to media codecs and libraries which have now been replaced from the new vlc repository.

Hi ollie

IANAME here too, especially now it has the new KDE.
dolphin, kdm, konqueror, plasma-applet-fuzzy-clock and strigi were among the packages listed for removal. I'm not sure what they have to do with vlc, which is why I have left well alone and not deleted them.

ollie wrote:

The package manager should not make recommendations that will break your system.

In an ideal world, no. But you have more faith than I, my friend.

Re: Mandriva 2009 the one?

spaceyhase — Sat Oct 18, 2008 5:11 pm

Author: spaceyhase

Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 5:11 pm

Hmm, my wifi is still a little odd. It only seems to pick up the connection and work perfectly if I broadcast the SSID. Soon as it's off, wireless no worky xfce doesn't seem to install as cleanly as the previous release.

2008 was excellent so it's a shame some of these bugs have crept in. This is on a 'eee' too, seems to most stable (i.e. complete) release for the platform in my opinion.