tar.gz / installing files question
 

i'm completely new to linux ... maybe someone can help me out with some file system basics ...

when you dl a tar.gz file and un-tar it, it creates a new directory that you enter to ./configure, make, make install ...

and most of the time, those files are installed wherever they need to be, right? this seems to be the case with libraries, etc ...

so, i know i can rm the tar file, but what about the directory it created when i un-tar'ed it?

what's the equivalent of the windows uninstaller? can you move a directory and ?re-point? needed refernces to the new location? if so, how?

i've edited a file for library paths, and i know the general search path thing will find "exe's" but how can i move a program's directory of, like, theme files?

or should i just uninstall and re-install the program where from the directory i want it in? (lol, if so, how?)

thanks ...

To uninstall a program installed from source (.tar.gz etc) you change to the directory where you did "make install" and do "make uninstall".

thanks Aussie! :)

Just as a warning, "make uninstall" doesn't work with everything. Some people didn't bother to build an uninstall option into the makefile, so to uninstall those you have to sort through the file by hand.

Re: tar.gz / installing files question
 

Yes you can remove it. That directory contains the program source code. "Make" builds a binary for the program from the code, "make install" installs the binary in another location. So you have no further need of the source code, unless you later want to re-build a new binary. And that is something you may want to do when you find you forgot to include a particular configuration option the first time you built it :)