How do I unmerge KDE entirely?

Kingoftherings · Guru Joined: 04 May 2008 Posts: 328

I installed KDE4 on my machine to just try it out, but it didn't work and now I want to get rid of it because its using up hard drive space.

Just simply unmerging kdebase-meta doesn't unmerge all the packages it merged.

And I'd like to do it withoug doing it all one at a time.

papahuhn · l33t Joined: 06 Sep 2004 Posts: 626

emerge --depclean --pretend
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Kingoftherings · Guru Joined: 04 May 2008 Posts: 328

It wants me to run emerge -uDN world before it can do anything. Its wanting to install a bunch of KDE things, which is not what I wanted, but I tried it anyway just so depclean would work, but it fails on the install of libkonq

halfgaar · l33t Joined: 22 Feb 2004 Posts: 781 Location: Netherlands

You can do something like this:

Kingoftherings · Guru Joined: 04 May 2008 Posts: 328

Thanks that did exactly what I needed. But just for future reference, I could understand the command, but what does xargs do?

pappy_mcfae · Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2008 7:26 am Post subject:

Use --depclean with the utmost care. It can and will break your system if you don't know exactly what each package is that it's trying to remove, and sometimes, even if you do know what packages its removing. I can't use it on this machine, because the first thing it wants to nuke is gcc. Es no bueno!

You can also look through the kde ebuilds and unmerge the dependencies manually. It's not quite as easy as a --depclean, but it's a lot less damaging as well.

Blessed be!
Pappy
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halfgaar · l33t Joined: 22 Feb 2004 Posts: 781 Location: Netherlands

vespaman · Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2008 4:06 pm Post subject:

OK. So I am in the same boat. Been trying the 4.1rc, and it is time to remove it. Can I? I installed it using the line;

deathcon1 · Apprentice Joined: 30 Aug 2007 Posts: 182 Location: Canada

This is how I remove KDE from my systems:

FIRST: check to make sure that everything is working properly and that major system parts (i.e. kernel, GCC, python, etc...) are all properly pointing to the correct versions, or this can cause havoc with your system. I.E. I've uninstalled my current kernel, the running version of GCC and Python, all in one move, because I was careless with this command. Combined with EIX and revdep-rebuild, and eclean, this is, imo one of the best ways to keep a system clean. Just really pay attention.

Anyways, warning disclaimer aside, on to uninstlaling KDE (assuming you used the meta-package):

vespaman · Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2008 4:39 pm Post subject:

If I do that, it will only remove kde 3.5, which I would like (if possible) to keep. (This is what I am using). Not the 4.1rc, which I'd like to get rid of.

halfgaar · l33t Joined: 22 Feb 2004 Posts: 781 Location: Netherlands

Working with depclean remains a dangerous thing. When using it, you have to make sure every package is up-to-date (update with --deep) and that you issue a "emerge --update --newuse --deep world" every time you change use flags.

IMO, the package system should give better control over removing packages; the fact that all KDE e-builds are a dependency of kde-base/kdebase, is a hack (again, in my opinion). Portage should have specific support for multi-ebuild software. On Debian it's even worse. I never know which package to install. There are 100 vim packages for example, and one can never know which package is meant to be directly installed, or pulled in as dependency.

Well, enough ranting

@vespaman
You can simply do something like:

vespaman · kde-base/kdebase-startkde-4.0.85

I'm sorry for being such a newbie on this, but... :oops:

.. this does not work either...

If I do:

deathcon1 · Apprentice Joined: 30 Aug 2007 Posts: 182 Location: Canada

Ok, first make sure your GCC is pointing to the right version:

halfgaar · l33t Joined: 22 Feb 2004 Posts: 781 Location: Netherlands

@vespaman
It is possible that you have KDE 4 packages which are not exactly 4.0.85. It's safer to construct the list based on:

equery list kde-base/ | grep -P "kde-base.*4.*"

Or something similar.

@deathcon1
In theory, that may work, but it's not what vespaman needs right now.
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deathcon1 · Apprentice Joined: 30 Aug 2007 Posts: 182 Location: Canada

halgaar: it does work, I give KDE a shot every month or so, and use that to remove it lol. Unfortunatly, I was slightly hung-over this morning and read that as KDE not KDE4... :oops:

vespaman · Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 10:29 am Post subject:

I'm clean now. I think... ;-)

I ended up using a line similar to this;

halfgaar · l33t Joined: 22 Feb 2004 Posts: 781 Location: Netherlands

Which GCC do you use (gcc-config -l)? The old one can be unmerged if you've recompiled your system with the new one, I believe. Or, perhaps that's only the case when the new version is incompatible. Anyway, if you do want to clean it up, you may want to read the GCC upgrading guide(s).

As for the rest of the packages, some of them don't appear to be superfluous (such as mailbase), so if you do decide to clean up, be careful.
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