CentOS - Jan 2008 - Can I remove X11 while keeping LSB compatibility?

Hi all,

I have a Cent OS 5 box with a fairly full install which I'm trying to  
strip down. Since this machine will be running headless I would like  
to remove all of the X11 stuff which is installed on it. However, it  
seems that the "redhat-lsb" package, which I would like to keep, is  
dependent on X11

- redhat-lsb depends on /usr/bin/lpr
- /usr/bin/lpr is provided by cups
- cups depends on paps
- paps depends on pango
- pango depends on libX11

Is it possible to safely break this dependancy chain so that I keep  
redhat-lsb while removing X11? I'm trying to keep all of my package  
management restricted to 'yum' and I certainly want to avoid 'rpm --
nodeps'.

Looking at /etc/alternatives/ makes me think there must be another  
package besides cups which provides /usr/bin/lpr but I can't seem to  
find it. I won't be doing any printing from this machine so I would  
even be happy with a dummy /usr/bin/lpr which simply throws away  
anything it receives.

Thanks,

- Richard

Richard Cooper wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I have a Cent OS 5 box with a fairly full install which I'm trying to 
> strip down. Since this machine will be running headless I would like 
> to remove all of the X11 stuff which is installed on it. However, it 
> seems that the "redhat-lsb" package, which I would like to keep,
is
> dependent on X11
>
> - redhat-lsb depends on /usr/bin/lpr
> - /usr/bin/lpr is provided by cups
> - cups depends on paps
> - paps depends on pango
> - pango depends on libX11 
libX11 is a library. You can remove the other X11 components but still 
keep the shared library.
You won't have a functional X11 - just one library that is from X11.

This is not uncommon - many servers run php/python/perl  etc. modules 
from drawing stuff that have dependencies on an X11 library - but do not 
have X11 installed, just a shared library from it.

On Tue, 22 Jan 2008, Richard Cooper wrote:
> Is it possible to safely break this dependancy chain so that I keep 
> redhat-lsb while removing X11? I'm trying to keep all of my package 
> management restricted to 'yum' and I certainly want to avoid
'rpm --nodeps'.
>
> Looking at /etc/alternatives/ makes me think there must be another package 
> besides cups which provides /usr/bin/lpr but I can't seem to find it. I
won't
> be doing any printing from this machine so I would even be happy with a
dummy
> /usr/bin/lpr which simply throws away anything it receives.
>
You can't break the dependency w/o using nodeps.  There is no technical
reason
to keep the lsb package if you are not going to keep the things it depends
on.  And if you don't keep the dependencies, then you don't have a fully
lsb compliant system.  There is no technical problem with that, though
you may have internal to your company issues.

If you don't need them, yum erase away.


------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Wildman, CISSP, RHCE       jim at rossberry.com http://www.rossberry.com
"Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best
state, is a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."
Thomas Paine