I am currently trying to deploy Fedora 35 with GNOME onto a few workstations. These machines will not have any relationship with parental control, and I am trying to remove the malcontent package to minimize the surface.
However, this package cannot be removed directly using dnf, as its dependency has been set to gnome-control-center, which is in turn the dependency of gnome-shell. Thus, it becomes impossible to remove this package individually without rpm --nodep, which does not prevent it from installing back whenever an update of gnome-shell lands. Nor will it be possible to block install via exluding from dnf.conf.
I researched a bit into them and cannot find a reason why the dependency relationship is being set like this. Is this something intentional or just wrong interpretation? I would say that the better way to manage it shall be making it a weak dependency to gnome-software.
If my knowledge is correct, what your command shows is that the malcontent package depends onpolkit, not the other way around. To inquire the packages which requiresmalcontent, you should use the following command:
I have been looking at a few other distros for their dependency relationship on malcontent, and it seems that none of them takes it as dependency of gnome-control-center. It is kinda meaningless to me that this thing is forced as a hard requirement of gnome-shell. On the other hand, removing it with rpm --nodep does not cause any issue currently.
I guess, one could think of malcontent as an optional dependency, but in this case, the maintainers clearly feel that it is an important enough feature/function to be treated as a necessary dependency. Maintainers (and developers) have to choose defaults, and sometimes defaults may not work for every use case. You can discuss this with the maintainers directly by filing a bug, or you could speak to the workstation SIG. They discussed its inclusion here, for example:
The thing here is: it seems that the gnome-control-center is not explicitly using this malcontent. This dependency relationship looks a bit weird on my side, and I shall fill a bug ticket later to discuss about it.
After 2 years later on F39 I have found this app by accident and it’s still impossible
to remove it without --nodeps as it have 20+ deps. It looks so weird for me so
I have to necropost this…
dnf remove malcontent
Dependencies resolved.
================================================================================
Package Arch Version Repo Size
================================================================================
Removing:
malcontent x86_64 0.11.1-2.fc39 @fedora 521 k
Removing dependent packages:
gdm x86_64 1:45.0.1-4.fc39 @fedora 5.1 M
gnome-browser-connector x86_64 42.1-4.fc39 @fedora 120 k
gnome-classic-session noarch 45.2-1.fc39 @updates 32 k
gnome-control-center x86_64 45.5-1.fc39 @updates 22 M
gnome-initial-setup x86_64 45.0-1.fc39 @fedora 1.9 M
gnome-session-wayland-session x86_64 45.0-3.fc39 @fedora 16 k
gnome-session-xsession x86_64 45.0-3.fc39 @fedora 15 k
gnome-shell x86_64 45.8.1-1.fc39 @updates 13 M
gnome-shell-extension-appindicator noarch 57-1.fc39 @fedora 237 k
Removing unused dependencies:
bolt x86_64 0.9.8-1.fc39 @updates 511 k
colord-gtk4 x86_64 0.3.0-4.fc39 @fedora 36 k
gcr x86_64 4.1.0-2.fc39 @fedora 132 k
gnome-session x86_64 45.0-3.fc39 @fedora 1.5 M
gnome-shell-extension-apps-menu noarch 45.2-1.fc39 @updates 23 k
gnome-shell-extension-common noarch 45.2-1.fc39 @updates 533 k
gnome-shell-extension-launch-new-instance
noarch 45.2-1.fc39 @updates 1.4 k
gnome-shell-extension-places-menu noarch 45.2-1.fc39 @updates 21 k
gnome-shell-extension-window-list noarch 45.2-1.fc39 @updates 72 k
gnome-tour x86_64 45.0-2.fc39 @updates 2.3 M
malcontent-control x86_64 0.11.1-2.fc39 @fedora 122 k
malcontent-ui-libs x86_64 0.11.1-2.fc39 @fedora 112 k
power-profiles-daemon x86_64 0.21-3.fc39 @updates 178 k
qadwaitadecorations-qt5 x86_64 0.1.5-2.fc39 @updates 148 k
qadwaitadecorations-qt6 x86_64 0.1.5-2.fc39 @updates 170 k
switcheroo-control x86_64 2.6-4.fc39 @fedora 102 k
tecla x86_64 45.0-1.fc39 @fedora 119 k
Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Remove 27 Packages
As a solution I have removed it by
rpm --erase malcontent --nodeps
rpm --erase malcontent-control --nodeps
rpm --erase malcontent-libs --nodeps # beware this will kill your flatpacks
rpm --erase malcontent-ui-libs --nodeps
but I dont’t like this way as there’s no entry records in my dnf history about the action.
Update:
Very shortly I found that that killed my flatpacks as malcontent-libs required by flatpacks so I had no options but revert malcontent-libs back.
flatpak: error while loading shared libraries: libmalcontent-0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Perhaps I did something wrong?
Why it’s so impossible to just not to have malcontent installed ?