[arch-general] Why irrelevant updates?

[Francis Gerund]

Okay guys, thanks for the info.

I didn't know about and hadn't thought about all the packages in the base
group being mandatory (or at least "expected" by other packages).


And yes, I find installed automatically, packages for:
-ext
-jfs
-reiser
-xfs
and who knows what else . . .

Even though I also am only using ext4 (and a swap partition).


On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 6:35 PM, Oliver Temlin <temlin at gmail.com> wrote:

> On May 13, 2015 12:45:58 AM CEST, Francis Gerund <ranrund at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Sometimes pacman presents updates that just don't seem to apply to my
> > system.
> >
> > Just one example: sudo pacman -Syyuv presents btrfs-progs, even
> > though:
> >
> > 1)  I do not, and have not, used the Btrfs file system with my Arch
> > setup.
> >
> > 2)  It is "Required by: None"
> >
> > 3)  It is "Optional for: None"
> >
> > But I hate to reject it. After all, there must be some reason it was
> > presented . . .  right?
> Every installed package is updated on your system. Btrfs-progs is part of
> the base group, which is part of most arch installations.
>
> > So, if I just say "yes" to all upgrades, won't my system over time get
> > weighed down by excess stuff, until it grinds to a halt?
> No, since updates rarely ever bring new software to your machine and
> cleaning the pacman cache gets rid of the additional storage space as well.
>
> > Or, if I just make my best guess at what is really need and reject the
> > rest, won't I have a Frankenstein system that will eventually break?
> You could try doing that, most packages will have the correct dependencies
> and complain on a breaking uninstall, but others (usually in community)
> just plainly (and fairly in terms of packaging effort) expect that you have
> everything installed from the base group.
>
> > And why, why, why doesn't it just present upgrades appropriate for my
> > system?
> You have an outdated version of a package installed. It might not even
> work when some of its dependencies are newer than itself.
>
> --Oliver Temlin
>