From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Arthur Othieno Subject: Re: File Management Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 14:08:53 +0100 Sender: linux-newbie-owner@vger.kernel.org Message-ID: <3D89CC65.1010301@gmx.net> References: <00c301c25f48$62b94bf0$64fea8c0@pkrausxp> <0209181930260H.03392@unix.pa3gcu> Reply-To: arthurothieno@gmx.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: List-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format="flowed" To: pa3gcu@zeelandnet.nl Cc: Paul Kraus , linux-newbie@vger.kernel.org pa3gcu wrote: > On Wednesday 18 September 2002 19:20, Paul Kraus wrote: > >>Obviously software is always better installed from source. This creates >>binaries that are system specific. However this represents the problem >>of software removal. I notice some software by default will install into >>/usr/local then dump everything under one directory (windows style-the >>source install for samba is a good example). You can uses switches to >>put these files in the correct bin lib etc folders. So if you follow the >>standard(usings the systems bin/etc/sbin/man/var folders) how can you >>effectively remove a piece of software without having a list of all the >>files and paths of every app you installed. This is the only drawback to >>Linux I have found. Of course RPMs/dpms are away around this but lets >>omit pre-packaged software. >> > > If ones installes programs from *.tar.gz archives after compiling one can > simply delete the source dir and its contents, you are then left with the > executable of course, when you want to "uninstall" a program reinstall the > source and simply type make uninstall, in some instancies it may be nessasary > to exectute a file called ./configure or even ./autogen.sh those files create > a Makefile, once the Makefile is created one can then do; > make uninstall . > > Mind you some older archives did not have that approch, but i guess in the > modern day kernels they would not compile anyway, so we can safely say; > > cd /to/source/dir > make uninstall Note that there are some programs distributed as tarballs that may not have the `uninstall' rule in their Makefile. This makes them harder to remove but not impossible (<- one word that doesn't deserve a place in your vocabulary)... Meet "checkinstall". This nifty program keeps a tab of all installed programs on your system, making it easier for you to manage them (Installing/Unistalling), by keeping a record of all write-actions performed when you do a `make install' or similar. Get it at http://proyectos.glo.mx/checkinstall/ To install the package, do: tar xvzf checkinstall-X.Y.Z.tg cd checkinstall-X.Y.Z make su (root passwd here) make install checkinstall exit To install a new package you would normally have to do ./configure make su (root passwd here) make install exit With checkinstall installed, you have to replace the `make install' step with `checkinstall' so that it (checkinstall) knows what has been installed andthus makes it easier to remove. So, you would have something like: ./configure make su checkinstall exit Hope that helps ;) Arthur > >>Paul Kraus >>Network Administrator >>PEL Supply Company >>216.267.5775 Voice >>216-267-6176 Fax >>www.pelsupply.com >> > > - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-newbie" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.linux-learn.org/faqs