LinuxQuestions.org - Linux, Possible Viruses?

about un-installing.

You do in fact have to go through and manually delete all the config files etc. Typically when you use a package manager to un-nstall things it only un-installs the packages and dependencies that came with the initial install. The way to do this is :
1 use your package manager to remove the package
ex for ubuntu:

Code:

sudo apt-get --purge remove package-name

where "package-name" is the name of the item being removed

2 update your data base

Code:

sudo updatedb

3 find remaining crap

Code:

locate package-name

4 use the rm command to remove remaining lines

Code:

rm /path/to/package-name.leftover

repeat 2, 3, and 4 till everything is gone.

Not doing this can cause conflicts if you try to reinstall the package. Linux doesn't have a registry but you still have to clean up after big programs like compiz are removed.