How to remove Discover?

I generally know how to remove packages but since removing discover breaks dependencies with plasma-meta im not really sure

I think it wouldn’t be a great Idea to force removing it with sudo pacman -Rncs discover, right?

sudo pacman -Rdd discover
2 Likes

Thank you I wasn’t really sure!

worked btw

1 Like

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman#Removing_packages

3 Likes

Keep in mind, it will get re-installed in the future if you -Rdd it.

The real problem is you are using a meta package for plasma.

3 Likes

What is the problem with the meta package for plasma and why will it get reinstalled?

The purpose of the meta package is to guarantee that all parts of it installed even as the list changes. So next time plasma-meta gets updated, it will reinstall the dependency.

If you don’t want all those packages forcibly installed, you should remove plasma-meta and convert the plasma packages to explicitly installed. Then you will able to remove packages without this challenge.

You can do that like this:

sudo pacman -R plasma-meta
sudo pacman -D --asexplicit bluedevil  drkonqi  kde-gtk-config  kdeplasma-addons  khotkeys  kinfocenter  kscreen  ksshaskpass  kwrited  oxygen  plasma-browser-integration  plasma-desktop  plasma-disks  plasma-firewall  plasma-nm  plasma-workspace-wallpapers  plasma-pa  plasma-systemmonitor  plasma-thunderbolt  plasma-vault kwayland-integration  kwallet-pam  kgamma5  sddm-kcm  breeze-gtk  powerdevil  xdg-desktop-portal-kde

Really, pacman -Rdd isn’t a good solution to long-term problems. You should only need to use that to resolve temporary issues during installing/updating packages.

4 Likes

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Meta_package_and_package_group

meta package:

Any new member packages will be installed when the meta package itself is updated with a new set of dependencies.

Users cannot choose which meta package dependencies they wish to install.

Users cannot remove meta package dependencies without having to uninstall the meta package itself.

4 Likes

Ahh okay so I should uninstall plasma-meta
but if i install sudo pacman -S plasma --needed it will try to reinstall everything again including discover and skipping everything else since they are already installed.

So basically I did that and also installed discover again to then remove it without breaking any dependencies. But even though I uninstalled plasma-meta discover will still break dependencies with plasma-meta which is uninstalled?

Removing plasma-meta will fix your dependency problems but it will orphan all the plasma packages.

I was having you install the plasma group to fix that. However, now that I think about it more, I am not sure install the plasma group with --needed will actually fix that because it just skips the already installed packages. :thinking:

Instead of installing plasma, it might be better just to convert the direct dependencies to explicitly installed.

2 Likes

What exactly do you mean by that?
I don’t really get it sorry :confused: I’m still relatively new to Linux

Won’t pacman -S plasma just re-install everything as explicit?

sudo pacman -D --asexplicit bluedevil  drkonqi  kde-gtk-config  kdeplasma-addons  khotkeys  kinfocenter  kscreen  ksshaskpass  kwrited  oxygen  plasma-browser-integration  plasma-desktop  plasma-disks  plasma-firewall  plasma-nm  plasma-workspace-wallpapers  plasma-pa  plasma-systemmonitor  plasma-thunderbolt  plasma-vault kwayland-integration  kwallet-pam  kgamma5  sddm-kcm  breeze-gtk  powerdevil  xdg-desktop-portal-kde

I updated the above answer to use this method which is better.

3 Likes

No, plasma is also a meta-package.
EDIT: No, it isn’t.

1 Like

Yes, but there is no reason to reinstall all the packages in this case.

plasma is a group, not a meta package.

2 Likes

Ah sorry about the confusion! :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Okay I just did that
What is the reason to use --asexplicit
I searched it up on the arch wiki
but I dont understand how this “solves” the “problem”

Note: Using --asdeps and --asexplicit options when upgrading, such as with pacman -Syu package_name --asdeps, is discouraged. This would change the installation reason of not only the package being installed, but also the packages being upgraded.

It stops DE components from getting removed next time your remove orphans.

When packages are pulled in by a meta package, they are installed as dependencies.

An orphan is a package which is installed as a dependency and no longer has any other packages that require it. By removing the meta package you orphan parts of the DE.

Converting those packages to explicitly installed means they will no longer be considered orphans.

Generally speaking, meta-packages are pain and I don’t recommend using them unless you know what you are doing and are sure you want that behavior.

3 Likes

Ohh thanks for the explanation I finally understand what it does!
So all necessary DE dependencies aren’t orphans that’s good to know otherwise I would have probably messed something up in the future

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 2 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.