[ale] My yum broke again and I can't fix it this time

[Michael B. Trausch]

I've been running Fedora now for a little while... since about F17,
anyway.  I've managed to fix things most of the time when these bloody
package management utilities break, but now I'm kind of stuck.

I recently decided to experiment with MATE.  I then (nearly immediately)
decided it was worthless, so I decided to try Cinnamon, since I'm
running F18 and it wasn't functional in F17.  (Good news, it actually
seems to work in F18, one relatively major bug notwithstanding.)

Anyway, I decided that I wanted to remove MATE, because it pulls in a
bunch of GTK2 stuff, including a bunch of duplicate programs.  But, when
I tried to do so...

Well, let's back up a second.  To install MATE, I simply did:

 # yum -y groupinstall 'MATE Desktop'

Which, of course, did as I wanted.

However, when I do this:

 # yum groupremove 'MATE Desktop'

I get... well, I get a *lot* of output, but here is the stderr:

[root at aloe ~]# cat remove-mate.stderr
No group named MATE Desktop exists
Skipping the running kernel: kernel-3.8.1-201.fc18.x86_64
Skipping the running kernel: kernel-3.8.1-201.fc18.x86_64
Skipping the running kernel: kernel-3.8.1-201.fc18.x86_64
Skipping the running kernel: kernel-3.8.1-201.fc18.x86_64
Skipping the running kernel: kernel-3.8.1-201.fc18.x86_64
Skipping the running kernel: kernel-3.8.1-201.fc18.x86_64
Skipping the running kernel: kernel-3.8.1-201.fc18.x86_64
Error: Trying to remove "systemd", which is protected
Error: Trying to remove "yum", which is protected

Now the confusing thing is that MATE Desktop installed just fine using
that group name, and that's the name that appears in the output of "yum
grouplist".  Go figure.

And I can't attach the uncompressed output of stdout, so I've simply
attached it as an .xz file for anyone who wants to read the whole thing.
 But here is the first few lines:

Loaded plugins: auto-update-debuginfo, langpacks, presto, refresh-packagekit
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package ConsoleKit-x11.x86_64 0:0.4.5-3.fc18 will be erased
---> Package ModemManager.x86_64 0:0.6.0.0-3.fc18 will be erased
---> Package NetworkManager.x86_64 1:0.9.8.0-1.fc18 will be erased
--> Processing Dependency: NetworkManager >= 1:0.7.1-3.git20090414 for
package: anaconda-18.37.11-1.fc18.x86_64
---> Package NetworkManager-openconnect.x86_64
0:0.9.7.0-1.git20120918.fc18 will be erased
---> Package NetworkManager-openvpn.x86_64 1:0.9.3.997-3.fc18 will be erased
---> Package NetworkManager-pptp.x86_64 1:0.9.3.997-3.fc18 will be erased
---> Package NetworkManager-vpnc.x86_64 1:0.9.3.997-3.fc18 will be erased
---> Package PackageKit-gstreamer-plugin.x86_64 0:0.8.7-1.fc18 will be
erased
---> Package PackageKit-yum-plugin.x86_64 0:0.8.7-1.fc18 will be erased
---> Package a2ps.x86_64 0:4.14-16.fc18 will be erased
---> Package abattis-cantarell-fonts.noarch 0:0.0.10.1-1.fc18 will be erased

And there is _miles_ of this!

Ultimately yum stops, saying that yum and systemd are protected and so
it aborts.  Well, that's good, I don't really want the stupid thing to
remove all my packages, just the ones for the damned desktop I don't
want lingering on my hard drive.

Is there a way to make the groupremove command work to reverse the
effect of the groupinstall command, or do I have to figure out the
dependency tree for the group by hand and remove the packages myself?

	--- Mike

-- 
Michael B. Trausch, President
Naunet Corporation

Telephone: (678) 287-0693 x130
Toll-free: (888) 494-5810 x130
FAX: (678) 287-0693
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