Is it safe to remove orphan package?

There are many threads on the forum about this subject already, so please, next time perform a search. Here’s a still fairly recent example, albeit perhaps not the most recent one. :point_down:

You can start by first removing all of the packages in that list that are shown as “alien” (:alien:) — those are all either AUR packages or packages no longer featured in the repositories. I can already identify a couple of them from here without having to look up on them — e.g. ceph-libs, which was dropped to the AUR and doesn’t even build properly anymore if you try installing it from there.

Other than that, some of the qt5-specific stuff can also safely be removed because it was already superseded by a qt6 version. Examples below… :point_down:

  • kactivities-stats5
  • kdesu5
  • kdnssd5
  • kfilemetadata5
  • krunner5
  • ktexteditor5

There are plenty more — and not just qt5 stuff — but you should check the others ending in 5 or -qt5 on whether there already are qt6-based replacements for them in the repos. If it’s an orphan from the AUR, then by definition it’s not needed — it may even have only been a build-time dependency for something else.

When in doubt, check with your package manager.


Oh yes, you can. :grin:

If your initial installation is old enough, then the newer versions of the packages from the original install medium may still be marked as “explicitly installed”, rather than “installed as a dependency”.

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