Uninstalling programs

zowki · 2009-09-02 14:03:02

How would one uninstall a program that was compiled from source? (Eg: "./configure" then "make")

tomk · 2009-09-02 14:13:19

/me wonders how many times this has come up....

Try make uninstall. If that doesn't work, use your time machine to go back to before you installed it, and read the README file and any other relevant docs. If you don't have a time machine, reading the README might still help.

Whether any of the above works or not, Write the following on a piece of paper and stick it on top of your monitor:

I WILL NOT INSTALL ANY APPS ON MY SYSTEM WITHOUT FINDING OUT HOW TO REMOVE THEM FIRST

Might be no harm to stick copies of this everywhere you go, just to reinforce the message.

When you are confident that you have learnt your lesson, you can then move on to the sane, common-sense approach i.e. creating Arch packages for the stuff you want to install and installing/removing them with pacman.

zowki · 2009-09-02 15:04:23

Ok thanks for the tip. I havn't installed stuff in that manner before I just wanted to know in case I do. Sorry for the dumb question, this should have belonged to the newbie corner.

spupy · 2009-09-02 15:28:24

Also note that you can try to run some programs before running "make install". The compiled binary is in the 'src' folder, try starting it. This way you can test some programs before installing them.

Shapeshifter · 2009-09-02 18:36:46

the way to install something in arch, is to make a PKGBUILD, then makepkg, and then install it using pacman. That way, pacman can also remove it and everything is awesome.
Read this:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The … guidelines
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ABS … _Explained
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Makepkg
And surprisingly, it's a lot less complicated than it looks! Seriously.

Last edited by Shapeshifter (2009-09-02 18:37:13)

btartsa · 2009-09-02 23:13:58

Installing virtualbox as a test environment is a nice way to keep your system clean, An option besides the above mentioned

Xyne · 2009-09-03 00:29:43

If you know approximately where the files were installed, you can use pacpal to list all unpackaged files in a given location (pacpal --list-unpkgd). You can get pacpal from my repo or from the AUR.

Ranguvar · 2009-09-03 05:40:42

To sum up, make install is evil. Use your distro's method of making packages, or at the very least use checkinstall or similar.

Acecero · 2009-09-03 06:27:11

Ranguvar wrote:

To sum up, make install is evil. Use your distro's method of making packages, or at the very least use checkinstall or similar.

It's not evil, it's just less efficient.

Also we need it for our build function in pkgbuilds.

Last edited by Acecero (2009-09-03 06:29:44)

zowki · 2009-09-03 07:44:04

If you are saying "make install" is so bad then how do people live with source based distributions like CRUX?

bender02 · 2009-09-03 08:26:16

zowki wrote:

If you are saying "make install" is so bad then how do people live with source based distributions like CRUX?

I think you have a basic misunderstanding of what does a "source based distro" mean. It doesn't mean that people using them do 'make install' manually. It means that their package manager compiles the package everytime it's installed/updated, instead of just downloading precompiled binaries (as happens with e.g. pacman).

fukawi2 · 2009-09-03 08:54:28

Another way is to use the --prefix option when you run the ./configure stage.

For example, I like to compile PostgreSQL from source, and install it using 'make install' so I'm in *total* control (eg, pacman doesn't even know it exists). To do this, I use the --prefix option to install *everything* to do with the package under /usr/local/pg-X.y where X = major and y = minor version (eg, /usr/local/pg-8.3)

This way, not only can I run 2 versions at the same time (eg, testing when a new major version is released), but once I upgrade, I can just rm -Rf /usr/local/pg-8.2 and the old version is gone.

Ranguvar · 2009-09-03 14:36:16

Acecero wrote:

Ranguvar wrote:
To sum up, make install is evil. Use your distro's method of making packages, or at the very least use checkinstall or similar.
It's not evil, it's just less efficient.
Also we need it for our build function in pkgbuilds.

I have an aversion to things that spew files randomly all over my system We harness make install's power in PKGBUILDs by forcing it into a fakeroot.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-09-02 14:03:02

Uninstalling programs

#2 2009-09-02 14:13:19

Re: Uninstalling programs

#3 2009-09-02 15:04:23

Re: Uninstalling programs

#4 2009-09-02 15:28:24

Re: Uninstalling programs

#5 2009-09-02 18:36:46

Re: Uninstalling programs

#6 2009-09-02 23:13:58

Re: Uninstalling programs

#7 2009-09-03 00:29:43

Re: Uninstalling programs

#8 2009-09-03 05:40:42

Re: Uninstalling programs

#9 2009-09-03 06:27:11

Re: Uninstalling programs

#10 2009-09-03 07:44:04

Re: Uninstalling programs

#11 2009-09-03 08:26:16

Re: Uninstalling programs

#12 2009-09-03 08:54:28

Re: Uninstalling programs

#13 2009-09-03 14:36:16

Re: Uninstalling programs

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