YaST2 Package Manager always recommends to install software I removed

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Over time, I have uninstalled many software packages that were initially selected by patterns but proved to be unneeded on this machine and only a waste of time when it comes to online update. Before upgrading to 13.2 recently, I have removed even more of them, totally emptying some pattern groups that were selected long time ago.

During upgrade procedure, I chose “Based on patterns” method rather than “Only update installed packages”, because I have no idea what new packages might be required for the modified usage scenarios. This of course resulted in that all those unnecessary packages got selected again, but I cleared their checkboxes manually — at least for those I was still sure I would not use.

That worked fine during upgrade, but turned into a disaster later: now every time I open the “Software Management” module in YaST, it always selects all those packages I unchecked during upgrade and marks them for “Autoinstall”. I tried to unselect them all (in installation summary) and then adding or removing other software, but every time the manager is re-run, all those packages are automatically selected again and again, probably waiting for me to forget about them some day and agree to install them by incident. I cannot even run “Online Update”, because everything intermixes then in a huge list of needed and unneeded items.

What can be done (apart from reinstalling the system from scratch) to stop this madness and unselect those packages once and for all, including for subsequent system upgrades?

2

Reinstalling wouldn’t help anyway.

Either right-click on the packages you don’t want and choose “Taboo – Never install”, or enable the option “Ignore recommended packages for already installed packages” in YaST’s “Options” menu.

3

That was my first thought, but it seemed too dangerous because of possibility that it may block future installation of really needed packages that depend on those libraries I don’t need today (dependencies often work in mysterious ways).

or enable the option “Ignore recommended packages for already installed packages” in YaST’s “Options” menu.

That did the trick. Thanks.
But why on Earth those packages are considered recommended? And for which installed software? For example, I have absolutely no items installed from the “Office” category, — then why does it recommend the entire LibreOffice for that [otherwise unselected] pattern? Likewise, I have only basic items from “Multimedia”, “Graphics” and “Games” (the latter only has “patterns-opensuse-x11” checked), — why would I need complete software suites for those?

Reinstalling wouldn’t help anyway.

I meant complete reinstallation with root system erasure. Not sure whether the upgrade procedure reinstalled all the packages in category with previous versions of openSUSE installer, but at least this issue was not present during normal operation earlier.

4

If a tabooed package would be required by anything, YaST would tell you about the conflict and let you choose a way to solve it (i.e. allow installation of the tabooed package, don’t install the new package, or ignore the conflict).

That did the trick. Thanks.

AIUI that should actually be the default anyway, but is not because of a bug.

But why on Earth those packages are considered recommended? And for which installed software? For example, I have absolutely no items installed from the “Office” category, — then why does it recommend the entire LibreOffice for that [otherwise unselected] pattern? Likewise, I have only basic items from “Multimedia”, “Graphics” and “Games” (the latter only has “patterns-opensuse-x11” checked), — why would I need complete software suites for those?

Depends on which packages you talk about.
Some are recommended by patterns, some are recommended by other packages to enable some additional functionality that not everybody needs.
In the case of LibreOffice, it’s probably recommended by the Office pattern. Even if you have nothing from the listed packages installed, you still have the pattern installed. Removing/Uninstalling the whole pattern should help as well in this case then.

You can see the installed patterns (and install/remove them) in View->Patterns.

I meant complete reinstallation with root system erasure. Not sure whether the upgrade procedure reinstalled all the packages in category with previous versions of openSUSE installer, but at least this issue was not present during normal operation earlier.

You would still have the same problem.
Recommended packages would be selected for installation again and again after you removed them.
The package dependencies won’t be different on a completely fresh installation… :wink:

In earlier openSUSE releases, uninstalled packages were locked automatically so that they never got installed automatically again.
But this caused other problems and unexpected behaviour, so this feature has been removed.

5

On Wed, 24 Dec 2014 17:56:01 +0000, SamsonovAnton wrote:

> wolfi323;2685037 Wrote:
>> Either choose “Taboo – Never install”
> That was my first thought, but it seemed too dangerous because of
> possibility that it may block future installation of really needed
> packages that depend on those libraries I don’t need today (dependencies
> often work in mysterious ways).

If a package became a hard dependency, you’d get an error trying to
install the package that the taboo’ed package depended on, and you’d then
be able to override it.

YaST wouldn’t install a package without its hard dependencies unless you
used options to specifically force it to break the dependencies.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
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