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yum bug, or?

By Ed Greshko at 03/29/2010 - 03:34

A previous post prompted me to try removing various language groups via
yum. I was surprised when this happened after doing yum groupremove
"Tajik Support"....

Removing for dependencies:
hplip-gui i686 3.9.8-28.fc12 @updates 2.5 M
openoffice.org-brand i686 1:3.1.1-19.28.fc12 @updates 1.3 M
openoffice.org-calc i686 1:3.1.1-19.28.fc12 @updates 61 k
openoffice.org-calc-core i686 1:3.1.1-19.28.fc12 @updates 20 M
openoffice.org-core i686 1:3.1.1-19.28.fc12 @updates 209 M
openoffice.org-draw i686 1:3.1.1-19.28.fc12 @updates 39 k
openoffice.org-draw-core i686 1:3.1.1-19.28.fc12 @updates 3.0 M
openoffice.org-graphicfilter i686 1:3.1.1-19.28.fc12 @updates 565 k
openoffice.org-impress i686 1:3.1.1-19.28.fc12 @updates 58 k
openoffice.org-impress-core i686 1:3.1.1-19.28.fc12 @updates 3.8 M
openoffice.org-langpack-en i686 1:3.1.1-19.28.fc12 @updates 0.0
openoffice.org-langpack-ja_JP i686 1:3.1.1-19.28.fc12 @updates 45 M
openoffice.org-langpack-ko_KR i686 1:3.1.1-19.28.fc12 @updates 36 M
openoffice.org-langpack-zh_CN i686 1:3.1.1-19.28.fc12 @updates 35 M
openoffice.org-langpack-zh_TW i686 1:3.1.1-19.28.fc12 @updates 35 M
openoffice.org-math i686 1:3.1.1-19.28.fc12 @updates 23 k
openoffice.org-math-core i686 1:3.1.1-19.28.fc12 @updates 3.8 M
openoffice.org-pdfimport i686 1:3.1.1-19.28.fc12 @updates 3.5 M
openoffice.org-presenter-screen i686 1:3.1.1-19.28.fc12 @updates 3.6 M
openoffice.org-writer i686 1:3.1.1-19.28.fc12 @updates 73 k
openoffice.org-writer-core i686 1:3.1.1-19.28.fc12 @updates 16 M
openoffice.org-xsltfilter i686 1:3.1.1-19.28.fc12 @updates 1.9 M
python-reportlab i686 2.3-2.fc12 @updates 5.0 M

This deserves a bugzilla....but I wonder what component would be best to
file it under. Does anyone know for sure?

Ed

Comments

Re: yum bug, or?

By Marko Vojinovic at 03/29/2010 - 08:00

[snip complete openoffice suite]

Well of course, Tajik Support is completely crucial for any core Linux
functionality, didn't you know? :-D

Seriously, the culprit is here is dejavu-sans-fonts, it seems. From the yum
dependency resolution,

--> Processing Dependency: dejavu-sans-fonts for package: 1:openoffice.org-
core-3.1.1-19.28.fc12.x86_64

so anything openoffice* depends on it. However, the same package is listed under
"mandatory" section in yum groupinfo "Tajik Support":

Group: Tajik Support
Mandatory Packages:
dejavu-sans-fonts
Default Packages:
dejavu-sans-mono-fonts
dejavu-serif-fonts
Conditional Packages:
kde-l10n-Tajik

I don't know what "mandatory" means in this context, but I guess when you try
to remove the whole group, yum tries to remove the dejavu fonts as well,
creating a cascade.

I would guess that the "Tajik Support" group is the culprit here, but I'm not
sure this is actually a bug. While not being certain how the concept of a
"group" actually works, my guess is that if you want to remove the *whole*
group, it removes the *whole* group.

Maybe someone can explain how to remove the group without removing all of it's
packages?

Actually, I've been wondering even before about this --- if I yum groupinstall
some group, then remove some individual package which is a part of that group,
does that mean that the group is still installed or not? It is unclear to me
what criterion defines that a group is installed, since one can have only some
of its packages installed. Fuzzy.

As a workaround, I guess yum groupremove "Tajik Support" followed by yum
install openoffice* would not drag in the complete Tajik support again, but just
the dejavu-sans-fonts package which is needed.

Best, :-)
Marko

Re: yum bug, or?

By Marko Vojinovic at 03/29/2010 - 08:17

Ok, found it --- the man yum says:

<quote>
grouplist
Is used to list the available groups from all yum repos. Groups are marked as
"installed" if all mandatory packages are installed, or if a group doesn’t
have any mandatory packages then it is installed if any of the
optional or default package are installed.
</quote>

So in this case, whenever you have the dejavu-sans-fonts installed, you
automatically have "Tajik Support" group installed, by definition. And since
openoffice depends on dejavu-sans-fonts, it really turns out that "Tajik
Support" is a necessary dependency for openoffice.

Yeah, very funny... ;-)

Also, there is another relevant remark in man yum:

<quote>
groupremove
Is used to remove all of the packages in a group, unlike "groupinstall" this
will remove everything regardless of group_package_types. It is worth pointing
out that packages can be in more than one group, so "groupinstall X Y"
followed by "groupremove Y" does not do give you the same result as
"groupinstall X".
</quote>

Illuminating, what can I say? Set theory in action... ;-)

Best, :-)
Marko

Re: yum bug, or?

By psmith at 03/30/2010 - 15:53

jeez 'yum groupinstall x' then 'yum groupremove x' doesn't even leave
you where you started, never mind the above case!

Re: yum bug, or?

By Ed Greshko at 03/29/2010 - 08:26

[snip]

Indeed.....

Yes, thanks for reading for me.... :-)

I can now sleep tonight.....

Ed