Re: [gentoo-user] What is the best way to clean up the world file?

[Mick]

On Thursday, 6 June 2019 09:56:24 BST Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Thu, 06 Jun 2019 09:36:03 +0100, Mick wrote:
> > I think, but may be wrong, regenworld will pick up anything and
> > everything in emerge.log and add it to your world file.  Definitely
> > create a back up of / var/lib/portage/world if you do not have one
> > already, because you can diff it later on to see how much weight it has
> > put on.
>
> I think it only adds packages that are not a dependency of something
> else, which may result in a world file that is too lean and
> over-enthusiastic depcleaning later on.
>
> Another method, a time consuming one, is to remove the world file and run
> emerge -p --depclean. Then emerge -n anything in the output that you use
> directly. Rinse and repeat. Eventually the depclean output will only
> contain unneeded packages, at which point you can run it in anger.

I haven't used it for a long time, so its behaviour may have changed/improved.  
The last time I used it I got a *very* long list of "package XXX was added to 
your world file" kind of message and stopped using it ever since.  I may have 
run it the wrong way - not sure - but thought of warning Grant just in case.  
With a back up in hand, which I foolishly did not have handy as I was rushing 
at the time, it is easy to revert any unwelcome changes.

As Dale mentioned my original problem (a fat/polluted world file) would have 
been easily resolved if I used 'emerge -1' each time I manually tried to sort 
out some portage output.  I think I've learned this lesson well.  ;-)

-- 
Regards,
Mick