Bug 1043989

Summary: yum installs unwanted packages through groupupdate
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Christoph Wickert <cwickert>
Component: yumAssignee: Packaging Maintenance Team <packaging-team-maint>
Status: CLOSED EOL QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: unspecified Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 20CC: admiller, ffesti, firas.alkafri, jzeleny, kparal, packaging-team-maint, raines, trevor
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
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Last Closed: 2015-06-29 13:34:05 UTC Type: Bug
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description Christoph Wickert 2013-12-17 15:01:21 UTC
Description of problem:
yum in Fedora 20 installs unwanted packages during 'yum update' because it actually runs a groupupdate as well.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
yum-3.4.3-122.fc20.noarch

How reproducible:
always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install the fedora Xfce spin. Note that it contains some packages that are in the GNOME group
2. yum update

Actual results:
Installing for group upgrade "GNOME":
 gnome-epub-thumbnailer   x86_64 1.3-2.fc20       fedora           21 k
 gnome-maps               noarch 3.10.2-1.fc20    fedora           131 k
 gnome-photos             x86_64 3.10.2-1.fc2     fedora           338 k
 gnome-software           x86_64 3.10.4-1.fc20    fedora           7.6 M

(not to mention the 25 dependencies of these packages)

Expected results:
No additional packages!

Additional info:
This behavior in combination with yum's logic of installed groups is just totally broken. Remember: As soon as a single mandatory package of a group is installed, yum considers this group installed. 

How do I update my system without dragging in additional packages I don't want?

Comment 1 Christoph Wickert 2014-01-29 12:41:57 UTC
Ok, I was able to fix this with "group mark remove GNOME", but the issue still persists for upgrades: When upgrading F19 to F20, the group will be marked as installed and thus additional packages and their dependencies are being installed.

Comment 2 Kamil Páral 2014-12-14 11:19:10 UTC
I have the same problem in Fedora 21. Yum wants to install additional packages (I removed manually) because of "upgraded group GNOME". However, *no such group exists* (notice there is no GNOME anywhere in the list):

$ yum group list
Loaded plugins: langpacks
Available environment groups:
   Fedora Server
   Fedora Workstation
   Fedora Cloud Server
   KDE Plasma Workspaces
   Xfce Desktop
   LXDE Desktop
   Cinnamon Desktop
   MATE Desktop
   Sugar Desktop Environment
   Development and Creative Workstation
   Web Server
   Infrastructure Server
   Basic Desktop
   Minimal Install
Installed groups:
   LibreOffice
Available Groups:
   3D Printing
   Administration Tools
   Audio Production
   Authoring and Publishing
   Books and Guides
   C Development Tools and Libraries
   Cloud Infrastructure
   Cloud Management Tools
   Cloud Server Tools
   Container Management
   D Development Tools and Libraries
   Design Suite
   Development Tools
   Domain Membership
   Editors
   Educational Software
   Electronic Lab
   Engineering and Scientific
   Fedora Eclipse
   FreeIPA Server
   Games and Entertainment
   Headless Management
   MATE Applications
   MATE COMPIZ
   Medical Applications
   Milkymist
   Network Servers
   Office/Productivity
   RPM Development Tools
   Robotics
   Security Lab
   Sound and Video
   System Tools
   Text-based Internet
   Window Managers
Done

I had to guess that I should use the command
$ yum group mark remove gnome-desktop
The command doesn't even complain when you use the name of an invalid group. So I had to try several times and try to run update afterwards to see whether it worked. This is broken as hell.

Comment 3 Trevor Cordes 2015-01-20 04:45:33 UTC
I see the point of this feature, though the initial description is quite buggy.  I think one thing that needs to be done is that it must be easy to edit/remove groups, preferably through a plain text file somewhere.  It is not obvious what file "yum group mark remove" is using to keep track, and it makes it feel like it's a "registry" type thing.  We should be able to get out of groups by editing a text file like yum.conf or some new file.

I did see /var/lib/yum/groups/installed and environment, but those don't seem to be something easy for the user to play with.

Comment 4 Paul Raines 2015-04-01 15:36:25 UTC
I had at one point installed group mate-desktop from EPEL and then later removed the rpms.  But on doing yum upgrade I would get:

Installing for group upgrade "MATE":
 gnote                    x86_64 3.8.1-3.el7                   base       3.0 M
 pluma                    x86_64 1.8.1-1.el7                   epel       590 k
 xchat                    x86_64 1:2.8.8-22.el7                base       952 k
 yumex                    noarch 3.0.15-2.el7                  epel       431 k

I ran:

[root@meb packages]# yum groups mark remove MATE
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, langpacks
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
 * extras: cluster
Marked remove: MATE

but it still kept happening.  From the group list I finally discovered I had to run 'yum group mark remove mate-desktop' but I claim it is a bug that run 'mark remove' on a non-existant group name gives no error then.

Comment 5 Fedora End Of Life 2015-05-29 10:01:05 UTC
This message is a reminder that Fedora 20 is nearing its end of life.
Approximately 4 (four) weeks from now Fedora will stop maintaining
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Comment 6 Fedora End Of Life 2015-06-29 13:34:05 UTC
Fedora 20 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2015-06-23. Fedora 20 is
no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further
security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug.

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