[Yum] Can yum be used to remove a single package?

[seth vidal]

On Mon, 2007-12-31 at 15:52 +0100, Littoz wrote:
> Experiencing a mis-hap in an update, I wanted to back up one step by 
> removing the suspected package. I then selected this package with YumEx 
> (graphical front-end for yum) in the "installed list" and asked it to be 
> removed. To my surprise, the dependency "transitive closure computation" 
> concluded that nearly all packages should be removed, even ones not 
> clearly related to my purpose (Explanation by the example: cups to be 
> removed; after dependency, open-office, kde, gnome, ..., maybe even 
> kernel to be removed also).
> 
> If the dependency computation used for package removal is the same as 
> for inclusion, it seems to me this is a design flaw. For inclusion, it 
> is perfectly right to compute a transitive closure and to add all 
> packages needed. For deletion, the dependency computation should only 
> decrement the "in-use" counter of the referenced package. Only when this 
> in-use counter goes to zero should the referenced package be put on the 
> removal list. Think of the way the i-nodes are deleted by Unix-like OS 
> in presence of hard links.
> 
> I admit that in some circumstances this approach can't be totally 
> fail-safe. For instance, you included an "independant" package A (not 
> referenced nor referencing). You then install package B referencing A. 
> If you remove B, you also remove A. But this situation can be quite 
> manageable compared to the present flooding strategy capable of 
> dramatically damaging a working system.
> 
> Configuration:
>     yum 3.0.6 (not the most up-to-date but coming from packages FC6)
>     yumex 2.0.1
>     i686 box running linux 2.6.22
> 

What package were you trying to remove when you encountered the above
problem?

-sv