You suggesting to calculate it. These calculations can become very complex. I would suggest to make a log. So if you urpmi foo, you also have to install bar and blah. This results in a line in /var/cache/urpmi/installlog: foo bar blah
Q: What would the impact be if you install multiple packages with one urpmi command? "urpmi bla foo kitchensink" ?
It would mean parsing the log to figure out what happened. IMHO what happened at one time is not relevant, the current state of the system is. If such an option is to be done then it should take place without logfiles or such.
IMHO, urpm{i,e} are not suitable for this. Note that apt-get has the same problem (not removing dependencies), and AFAIK Debian has a tool which does do this, dselect.
If this funtionality is in rpmdrake instead, then any packages that were manually selected by the user would be listed with their deps, and when they are removed, so would their deps ...
IMHO, if it can be done in rpmdrake it should also be done in urpmi...
Perhaps what's missing is the destinction between "end point" and "intermediate" packages (new terms). An "end point" package would provide functionality which is usefull to a user and users would be installing such packages. Example of an "end point" package would be evolution, postfix, mozilla. These "end points" depend on "intermidiate" packages (often: lib*). So, if an "end point" were to be removed, the system could check the dependency database and tell you which "intermidiate" packages can be removed (without removing any other "end points").
Are such assumptions workable? Multiple packages can be installed with rpmdrake at one time.Now if urpme tries to uninstall foo it will read that line and will try to uninstall those rpms, on request and only if no other apps have grown dependent on them as well.
urpme foo, would that deinstall bla and kitchensink as well? Or would multple log entries need to be made for every package that is installed from urpmi (different entry for bla, foo and kitchensink). What if they share dependencies? Where do you put what? What if you then remove "bla", a shared dep remains, and then remove "foo". That shared dep would need to go then too... Difficult.
Sorry, it doesn't sound right to me...This sounds like a much simpler and therefor safer solution. Most of the time I know after 10 minutes of using an app whether I like it or not ;)
Well, if you assume a user is installing one main package at a time, then it may be feasible ... otherwise not.
regards,
Stefan
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