REMOVE OPTIONS (APPLY TO -R) -c, --cascade Remove all target packages, as well as all packages that depend on one or more target packages. This operation is recursive and must be used with care, since it can remove many potentially needed packages. -s, --recursive Remove each target specified including all of their dependencies, provided that (A) they are not required by other packages; and (B) they were not explicitly installed by the user. This operation is recursive and analogous to a backwards --sync operation, and it helps keep a clean system without orphans. If you want to omit condition (B), pass this option twice.
Just use
-Rsc
.🤔 now you mention it you should not have orphans if you always use
-Rs
either, the only difference should be that without-c
pacman will fail when removing a package would break another package.The Debian and Fedora package managers are like
-Rc
, they remove dependencies instead of failing. Whether that's good or bad is up to you; I always use-c
because it's easier to read a list and type yes than it is to type all the dependencies.-s
goes "forwards" in the dependency chain (like--autoremove
) and-c
goes "backwards" (like other package managers).I'm not sure if this helps at all, but let's say there's a package
zizek
that depends onmarx
andlacan
,lacan
depends onfreud
. You are interested in classical and contemporary psychoanalisis so you dopacman -S freud zizek
. It installszizek
andfreud
explicitly andlacan
andmarx
as a dependencies, then you decide you don't have time for Lacan and:-
pacman -R lacan
will fail becausezizek
depends onlacan
. -
pacman -R lacan zizek
will delete those two and leavemarx
andfreud
alone. -
pacman -Rs lacan
will also fail becausezizek
depends onlacan
. -
pacman -Rs lacan zizek
will additionally deletemarx
because it was installed as a dependency. -
pacman -Rss lacan zizek
will additionally deletemarx
andfreud
, skipping the condition (B) of the manual. -
pacman -Rc lacan
will additionally deletezizek
instead of erroring out, but it will leavefreud
andmarx
. This is what i.e.apt remove
does. -
pacman -Rsc lacan
will deletelacan
,zizek
, andmarx
. -
pacman -Rssc lacan
will deletelacan
,zizek
,marx
andfreud
.
-
I use manjaro, the big thing for me is the aur. Manjaro has its own package manager thats a little easier. I'm not that familiar with anything othe than apt but with arch being rolling release its important to update all packages whenever you add something new to avoid instability, which is really easy to do with pacman: -Syu.
Manjaro includes pamac as well as pacman. It has a few extra features and differences. It uses full word commands (pamac install ___ ) and has a gui (add/remove programs). It also can manage flatpaks and snaps, which is convenient. I mostly meant that it is simpler to learn. What kind of system do you run, out of curiosity?