Re: [gentoo-user] How can I find all "orphaned" files?

[Mike Edenfield]

On 3/25/2011 5:33 AM, Dale wrote:
> Neil Bothwick wrote:
>> On Fri, 25 Mar 2011 01:33:38 -0500, Dale wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Naturally this returned a lot so we have to use common sense before
>>> deleting something.  That said, what about these:
>>>
>>> /usr/bin/cc
>>> /usr/bin/c++
>>> /usr/bin/c89
>>> /usr/bin/gcc
>>> /usr/bin/gcov
>>> /usr/bin/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-c++
>>>
>> I think these are created by gcc-config, so don't belong to any package.
>> If you want to do this regularly, I'd suggest creating a list of
>> exceptions that you can exclude from find. You don't need to search
>> everywhere, /{,usr}/{,s}bin, /{,usr}/lib and /opt should be sufficient.
>>
>>
>
> So if they were deleted things would still work?  Just curious.  This is
> a recent install so I wasn't expecting it to find much, just files I
> created basically.  I just thought it odd that it found so many files
> and that qfile/equery didn't know where they came from either.
>
> That gcc one bugs me tho. It's in /usr/bin but doesn't belong to a
> package.  Just blows my mind, which ain't much right now.  lol   I got
> to get better meds.

/usr/bin/gcc doesn't belong to any package. The gcc packages install
versioned files, like:

/usr/bin/gcc-4.5.2 ->
/usr/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/gcc-bin/4.5.2/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-gcc

When you run gcc-config to pick a compiler, it creates and/or updates
/usr/bin/gcc (and the others) to point to whatever version binaries you
selected.

If you deleted /usr/bin/cc, /usr/bin/gcc, etc. things would stop
compiling, but just running gcc-config will make them come back. If
/usr/bin/gcc is missing you will get an error about your GCC_SPECS being
wrong but that's because gcc-config tries to run `/usr/bin/gcc -v` to
check for problems. But the error is harmless -- just re-run gcc-config
again and you will see it finish with no problems.

--Mike