I will ask this with an example -

I have installed gnash-plugin on fedora 64 bit with Yum. It pulled in following packages -

  Installing     : agg-2.5-9.fc13.x86_64                                                                                                             1/6 
  Installing     : gtkglext-libs-1.2.0-10.fc12.x86_64                                                                                                2/6 
  Installing     : boost-thread-1.44.0-7.fc14.x86_64                                                                                                 3/6 
  Installing     : boost-date-time-1.44.0-7.fc14.x86_64                                                                                              4/6 
  Installing     : 1:gnash-0.8.8-4.fc14.x86_64                                                                                                       5/6 
  Installing     : 1:gnash-plugin-0.8.8-4.fc14.x86_64                                                                                                6/6 

Now, I tested the plugin and I didn't like it. I want to remove all these above packages which got installed with the plugin as I don't longer going to need them. How can I do this?

I checked remove-with-plugin for yum but it pulls in all the packages which are currently depending on the packages.

I understand the thought process behind showing what packages are getting affected - but I am wondering if there is any way of looking at the history with what package got installed when I installed a certain package.

When gnash-plugin wasn't there firefox was running fine with but after I installation firefox is now depends on this new plugin.

Has any one worked on differentiating hard-dependencies(hard means the program will break if that package is not there) and soft-dependencies ( soft means the program may not get affected fatally) ?