How do I uninstall software?
 

Hello everyone!
I'm just curious about uninstalling software that I've previously installed. I've read much about installing software from source, but I can't seem to find how to uninstall it later, if I don't need it for instance. Actually, I'm running Ubuntu, it has easy to use Synaptic Package manager, so I'm just curious to find out more about the Unix-like systems.
Can anyone point me to a web or other resource where I can find some more info on that?
Thanks!

hi ..... i'm also a newbie .... "they" told me ... that linux - guys know what they do ... this is why it does not happen that there is useless software installed ... haha .. very funny !

here is what i did to remove softwar /gain free space .. as long as the system does not depend on one of those components it should work ...

find the "prgramms directory and "executable" with "whereis gnump3d" fe. then delete them .... also remove entries from /etc/init.d/*

but .... as with opensource sw .. they use lots of external librarys usw ... dontknow how to verify if everything unneeded is gone ....

cu

Here is an article about installing from source. Scroll down to the part about Uninstalling.
http://www.justlinux.com/nhf/Install..._Software.html

There is also a utility called make_uninstall which can be used to monitor source installation and make it easier to uninstall.
http://freshmeat.net/projects/make_uninstall/

You don't have this problem, if you do it right. See earlier post.

And to quote Haynes (provider of car repair manuals) "re-assembly is the reverse of removal".

If you can, use a package manager that automates these things, or if you insist on source packages (or non-package manager managed packages), follow one of these:
1) see if the package includes a removal script, uninstallation target for make or something equivalent and use that - some software comes with an uninstaller script as well as an installer script ("make install" vs. "make uninstall" and so on)
2) see what the installation script does (for example "install" target of make - at Makefile), then just follow the same steps from the end to the beginning, removing/undoing whatever the installer did
3) use some software to automate option 2); see above posts.

In the end in a Unix system everything is files, and removing software means removing the files included in that software thing and undoing any modifications that were possibly made when the software was "installed". That leaves a lot of options on how to remove "installed" software, some of which depend on the method that was used to install the software, so you just need to pick the easiest one or the one that suits you best. Typically it's better to think before doing, and that holds here too - if you thought about this before installing anything, you would have made sure you have easy means to undo the changes to the filesystem.

yum?
 

i believe ubuntu comes with yum pre-installed...

have you tried a "yum remove package name"

Thanks guys for the info! As I said I want just to know more about this just from curiosity.
1) see if the package includes a removal script, uninstallation target for make or something equivalent and use that - some software comes with an uninstaller script as well as an installer script ("make install" vs. "make uninstall" and so on)

2) see what the installation script does (for example "install" target of make - at Makefile), then just follow the same steps from the end to the beginning, removing/undoing whatever the installer did

why didn't I think about it? :)

Isn't yum used in rpm -distros. I think you were meaning apt-get.