Arch Linux

GeneralUncertainty

Member

Registered: 2019-03-24

Posts: 3

Removing packages and config files permanently - unexpected behaviour.

Hi all.
I'll try to be as clear and direct as I can.

End Goal: I'm trying to use sync for Firefox on my laptop, phone and tablet. It's a debacle.

Context: I've been using Debain as a desktop/hobbyist user for two decades and having had Arch for a week, some things work in unexpected ways, and Googling and searching here hasn't solved my problem.

What I want: I want to uninstall Firefox, purge the config files (by which I mean the equivalent of Debian's "apt-get purge firefox"), delete the user files in .mozilla and reinstall it to make sure my Firefox installation is 100% clean. This is a 'last resort' recommendation for solving the sync problem I'm having with my Androids.

What's happening: One, when I use pacman to remove Firefox it's not deleting the config files like apt does - I'm lead to believe this is by design, which is fine, but I have no idea how to find all those config files and do the job manually or with other software.
Two, when I delete the directory in /home/me/.mozilla the same way I've been using 'rm' in Debian for twenty years THE FILES COME BACK. That freaked me out, which you can tell by the caps.

My questions: (1) How do I locate and remove all of a package's config files if pacman does not have a purge function the way apt does? (2) why are files deleted by 'rm' coming back, and how do I delete them permanently?

Explanations after the solutions that illuminate why these things are the way they are more than welcome, of course. I like learning.

Cheers

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,530

Website

Re: Removing packages and config files permanently - unexpected behaviour.

How do I locate and remove all of a package's config files if pacman does not have a purge function the way apt does?

Pacman does have such a function.  Read the man page.

(2) why are files deleted by 'rm' coming back, and how do I delete them permanently?

Because you are running some software that is recreating them.  Stop running that software.  If you want a more detailed answer, specify what files you are referring to.

---

"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

GeneralUncertainty

Member

Registered: 2019-03-24

Posts: 3

Re: Removing packages and config files permanently - unexpected behaviour.

Pacman does have such a function.  Read the man page.

I did. It didn't help. That's why I came here.

Because you are running some software that is recreating them.  Stop running that software.  If you want a more detailed answer, specify what files you are referring to.

I did. Read my post again.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,426

Re: Removing packages and config files permanently - unexpected behaviour.

In general you are going about this the wrong way. Even if pacman didn't have a purge function, the firefox package is as far as the system installation goes, unaffected by this and whether you remove with said purge function or not, all system relevant files will be removed. Which leaves the files in your home directory, for which you have mentioned a single directory.  This single directory will come back when you run firefox again, as is to be expected, or likely as well if you run thunderbird, or any mozilla software, did you actually look inside and see that explicitly the firefox directory came back?. If you did have any of these running, even if you "purged" firefox beforehand, the directory will get created, if it was running prior to that. Look through your running processes, you likely still have some mozilla app running.