keeping source file for uninstalling

demmylls · 03-12-2004, 02:19 PM

how do i be able to uninstall a program that installed using source code?
what i mean is to "make uninstall"
which file should i keep in the source tree so that i can do make uninstall?

if i wanna keep the whole folder of source, that will take alot of space.

/bin/bash · 03-12-2004, 05:13 PM

Thats kinda hard to say. Not all packages are the same, you may only need the Makefile but then again you could have many levels of sub directories and each one could have its own Makefile. The program may have an uninstall script or an install script and you just pass an arguement to it to make it uninstall.

What you could do is just remove the whole directory and keep the tarball. If you ever decide to uninstall the program you can untar the sources and go back and do a "make uninstall".

demmylls · 03-13-2004, 12:27 AM

huh?
will that work?
how about when i pass --prefix argument when i installing the application?

the newly untared file dont have the information of my --prefix right? so how can i uninstall from there.

is there any source manager that will track what and where files being installed and then be able to removeit without having the actuall compiled source?

slakmagik · 03-13-2004, 01:14 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by demmylls
huh?
will that work?
how about when i pass --prefix argument when i installing the application?

the newly untared file dont have the information of my --prefix right? so how can i uninstall from there.

is there any source manager that will track what and where files being installed and then be able to removeit without having the actuall compiled source?

Checkinstall will make rpm's.

/bin/bash · 03-13-2004, 03:44 AM

You're right, what I posted would only work if you did a standard install. You could save the entire directory as a bzipped tarball. That way you have all the config files when you want to uninstall. I don't know though, it seems there should be a better way to do this. Have you looked at uninst?