Using yum to Remove Packages

Using yum to Remove Packages

So far we have looked at using yum only for installing software, but that is only a small part of its capabilities. It can also be used to remove packages that are no longer required, as well as to give detailed information on installed and available packages. The syntax is similar to the installation and update functions of yum. In this section, we look at removing packages from the system using yum.

As mentioned earlier, yum interfaces with the rpm command to use it for querying the local package database. If you need to remove a package, you can use yum remove <packagename>. yum then scans the local file system, finds the package named, and checks for potential dependency problems. This way, you will never remove a package that could crash your system. You are prompted to give confirmation that you want to remove the required package; then yum processes the packages and their dependencies to remove them safely.