Base packages orphaned ?

Question

Today i thought about cleaning my system form unused packages, so i ran pacman -Qe (output below) to find orphaned packages.
from man pacman :
-e, --orphans
              List all packages that were explicitly installed (ie, not pulled in as a dependency  by  other packages) and are not required by any other packages.
some of the packages that were listed : sysvinit, initscripts, grub, man , PACMAN may fit the first part of the description but not the second part.
Do you think i should file a bug report ?
pacman -Qe
acpi 0.09-1
acpid 1.0.4-2
acroread 7.0.5-1
alsa-driver 1.0.11-1
alsa-oss 1.0.11-1
alsa-utils 1.0.11-1
aspell-en 6.0-1
aspell-nl 0.50-3
autoconf 2.59-2
automake 1.9.6-1
avifile 0.7.45-1
azureus 2.4.0.2-1
bash-completion 20060301-5
bin86 0.16.17-1
bison 2.1-1
cpio 2.6-1
cvsup 16.1h-3
devfsd 1.3.25-4
dhcpcd 1.3.22pl4-4
fakeroot 1.2.13-2
findutils 4.2.27-1
flashplugin 7.0.63.0-1
freenx 0.4.5-5
gaim 1.5.0-4
gdb 6.4-1
gettext 0.14.5-2
glhack 1.2-1
grub 0.97-2
gwenview 1.3.1-1
hdparm 6.3-1
hplip 0.9.8-1
hwd 4.8.2-1
initscripts 0.7.2-1
iputils 021109-4
jfsutils 1.1.10-1
k3b 0.12.15-1
kaffeine 0.8.1-1
kbd 1.12-4
kdeaccessibility 3.5.2-1
kdeaddons 3.5.2-1
kdeadmin 3.5.2-1
kdeartwork 3.5.2-1
kdebindings 3.5.2-1
kdeedu 3.5.2-1
kdegraphics 3.5.2-1
kdenetwork 3.5.2-1
kdesdk 3.5.2-1
kdetoys 3.5.2-1
kdeutils 3.5.2-1
kernel26 2.6.16.18-1
krusader 1.70.0-2
libdvdcss 1.2.9-2
licenses 1.0.1-1
lilo 22.7.1-1
lincity-ng 1.0.3-1
lynx 2.8.5-2
man 1.6c-2
man-pages 2.29-1
mc 4.6.1-4
mesa-apps 6.4.2-1
mozilla 1.7.12-1
mozilla-firefox 1.5.0.3-1
nano 1.2.5-1
net-tools 1.60-10
nethack 3.4.3-2
netselect 0.3-1
ntp 4.2.0a-6
nvidia 1.0.8178-16
nxclient 1.5.0-7
openoffice-nl 2.0.2-2
pacman 2.9.8-1
patch 2.5.4-2
pcmciautils 013-6
procinfo 18-3
procps 3.2.6-1
psmisc 22.1-1
pyqt 3.16-1
raidtools 1.00.3-3
reiserfsprogs 3.6.19-1
rp-pppoe 3.7-2
shorewall 3.0.6-4
slocate 3.1-1
sudo 1.6.8-10
syslog-ng 1.6.10-1
sysvinit 2.86-2
tar 1.15.1-2
ttf-cheapskate 2.0-4
ttf-ms-fonts 1.3-8
vim 6.4-2
vmware-workstation 5.5.1_19175-2
vultureseye 1.11.2-3
which 2.16-1
xf86-input-evdev 1.0.0.5-1
xfsprogs 2.7.11-1
xmame-sdl 0.105-1
xorg-fonts-100dpi 1.0.0-2
xorg-fonts-75dpi 1.0.0-2
xorg-fonts-type1 1.0.0-2
xterm 207-1

Answer 1

Lone_Wolf wrote:Is it wise to have important packages listed as orphaned packages ?
Personally, i would answer NO to that question.
If more people feel the same, what would be the easiest way to change it?
I agree...
IMHO, with current pacman behaviour "ophaned" should be changed to "explicitly installed".
Here is my understanding of what should be called orphaned package:
1) user installs package A, which requires packages B and C,
2) user installs package D, which requires package C,
3) after few days user decides to remove package A, but typed -R instead of -Rs, so only package A is removed, packages B and C were skipped by Pacman,
Now, package B is orphaned because it was installed as a dependency and now is not required by any other package.
Package C is not orphaned, because it is still needed by package D.
Package D should be treated by Pacman as "explicitly installed", not "orphaned".
I think there should be two different command-line options for Pacman: one for explicitly installed packages and another one for orphaned packages.