UNinstall ?
 

Hello everyone. Though I've used linux for about a year at school, only recently did I install it on my computers at home. Thanks for this forum, and site as a whole, which has already resolved numerous problems in my computing life. Anyway, MY question of the moment (which I'll admit is probably pretty dense) is . . .

When you decide that you would like to remove a piece of software, is there a systematic way of doing so? I would suspect that it involves more than simply deleting the relevant directories. As far as I can tell, there is no magic command like uninstall. Is there a series of commands that would ensure you had rid your system of most (if not all) traces of software you no longer need? Thanks!

evolooshun
KS, USA

Hi, and welcome to LQ!

Well ... SuSE and DeadRat are rpm based, if the
programs you're trying to uninstall haven't been
installed from source or as binary you should use
the proper tool for the job of removing them - rpm.

In the other cases it again depends on what/how
you installed - be a bit more specific ;)



Cheers,
Tink

Specifically, I'm talking about progams that were installed from source . . . and that were then either left in my home directory before installation or moved to /usr/share and then installed. And, in most cases, I'm talking about programs that didn't require any additional/special libraries.

Thanks,
evolooshun

If the makefile has an un-install you're lucky.

If it doesn't - use checkinstall for a re-installation
of the package and then remove it using RPM.

If that fails - happy seek & destroy.



Cheers,
Tink

Use YaST.

Thanks all. The makefile route worked. Please excuse my ignorance. And I needed the reminder to use YaST, which (strangely) I often forget about, as new to SUSE as I am.

evolooshun