Re: Discussion about why GNU/Linux system upgrades cause old programs to break

"Arsen Arsenović" <[email protected]> Wed, 12 Aug 2026 19:45:54 +0200

Newsgroups	gmane.emacs.devel
Organization	BayLibre
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

Richard Stallman <[email protected]> writes:

> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>   > An upgrade can most certainly do that: if A version 1 requires B and C,
>   > and A version 2 requires merely B, the upgrade and and subsequent
>   > cleanup will remove C.
>
>   > This is only avoided if C was also marked as wanted (or "manually"
>   > installed, or added to @world, ... depending on package manager).
>
> I understand what an upgrade is -- but what exactly is a "subsequent
> cleanup"?
>
> Does it mean sysadmins, after the upgrade, think about which old
> libraries to delete?
>
> Or is it something automatic that happens as part of an upgrade?

The former, though it is automated, just not as part of the upgrade
itself.

E.g. 'apt autoremove' on Trisquel.

Most sysadmins reflexively do that after an upgrade.
-- 
Arsen Arsenović

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