Avoid

There is certain software that I would like to avoid. This repository helps configure the system so that the software doesn't get pulled in accidentally.

The package names were verified against the official package databases of each distribution family (packages.fedoraproject.org, download.opensuse.org repodata, archlinux.org/packages, packages.gentoo.org).

• Copy the file avoid to /etc/apt/preferences.d/avoid

• Append the excludepkgs= line from avoid-fedora to the [main] section of /etc/dnf/dnf.conf
• With dnf5 (Fedora 41+), avoid-fedora can instead be copied to /etc/dnf/libdnf5.conf.d/avoid.conf (drop-in directory)

• Copy the content of avoid-opensuse to /etc/zypp/locks, or apply the same locks interactively:

zypper addlock <package-name>

• Add the IgnorePkg and IgnoreGroup lines from avoid-arch to the [options] section of /etc/pacman.conf

• Copy avoid-gentoo to /etc/portage/package.mask/avoid

• These package managers (apk and xbps, respectively) have no native mechanism to exclude packages from being installed or pulled in. There is no configuration file that can be shipped for them; install only what you need and use a minimal base image instead.

Mirroring the original Debian file, the following are deliberately not excluded on any family, because they are required by the base system or kept for compatibility:

• The GTK2 libraries
• The base GLib runtime (libglib2.0-0 on Debian, glib2 on dnf/Arch, libglib-2_0-0 on openSUSE, dev-libs/glib on Gentoo)
• The base GTK3 runtime (libgtk-3-0t64 on Debian, gtk3 on dnf/Arch, libgtk-3-0 on openSUSE, x11-libs/gtk+:3 on Gentoo)

Everything else in the avoid list (GNOME, GTK4, Wayland, PipeWire, XDG portals, Flatpak, NetworkManager, D-Bus, polkit, JACK, meson/ninja, gstreamer, and so on) is pinned to a priority of -1 (apt), excluded (dnf/pacman), locked (zypper) or masked (Portage).