Ok so I wrote reboot (I suppose that's what you meant), a few lines appeared and it restarted.
Not that it matters for the main problem, but I've always wondered : where are the lines that appear on start up/shut down logged ? (I'm sure they're logged somewhere otherwise it's useless, as you don't have time to read them).

Anyway, now I'm back to the login window. It seems it's ok.
So how can I delete what I did in the first place ?

Hi,

First of all, check if you can log in to your system and tryout a couple of things. Also check if you can use su or sudo in a terminal. Main issue is to have full access to your system, otherwise you will not be able to complete the necessary steps I think.

Kind regards,

Eric

Yes I can use sudo.

So basically, you've got your system up and running again? That's good news. Regarding the package you installed, I've never installed it myself that way. Since it doesn't have an uninstall option (like you checked with repo) it's going to be a lot harder I think to do it correctly and completely, and more important without breaking anything again.

First of all I had a look at the site where you got the download from. May I ask why you downloaded version 0.77 and not the latest? Is there any particular reason for that?

You could delete the files that are created and the links to them. Files are described here.

Do you have a log file in the directory from where you ran the install? If you do, then check that log file to find out what was installed and where, such as links as per your first post.

If there's no log file then we'll have to go through the scripts to find out what's done in order to undo it.

Kind regards,

Eric

Yes it seems to be running again.
No there's no reason I installed the 0.77, I just didn't know it wasn't the latest.
I didn't find any file called exactly "log", but there's quite a lot of files including the word "log", as i found out during a quick search :
changelog, config.log, faillog.h,pam_lastlog.c, pam_nologin.c,...
(do you want me to list all of them?)

Have a look inside the config.log if it mentions locations and files that are installed.

Kind regards,

Eric

In the meantime, may I offer you a small advice? Actually two?

1. If you want to install things and don't want to run the risk of breaking your system, stick to the package manager (also stated by repo) instead of installing from source until you know what the installation will do. To find out what it will do, read what's in the package, the README, INSTALL and other files are there for a reason. And don't install old versions of software unless you really need them/want them.

2. If you want to experiment and install from source, you'll have to take into account that you might break your system. So be prepared that you might have to reinstall everything (if the break cannot be fixed). So; the golden rule: BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP.

Kind regards,

Eric

On the other hand: You're learning a lot about fixing broken things real fast.


Kind regards,

Eric

Yeah I know. But I was quite in a hurry to try this, and I don't think it is in the package manager.

the config.log file is quite big.
there are some c-like lines. gcc is mentionned some times as well.
the first two lines are :
this file contains any messages produced by the compilers while running configure, to aid debugging if configure makes a mistake.
Would you like me to mail you the whole file ? (312 lines)

yeah, that's what i would like us to review everything we've done when it's fixed, if you don't mind, because so far I didn't really understand half of the things i did.

Sure, I'll have a look at it to see if it holds what you need to remove installed things.

Kind regards,

Eric

I don't mind at all.

Hello,

I had a quick look at the log you mailed me but didn't see anything that can be of use. Can you check if you don't have an install.log or so in the directory where you ran the install from?

Kind regards,

Eric

ls ~/Downloads/Linux-PAM-0.77 :
bin config.status doc libpam_misc _pam_aconf.h
CHANGELOG configure dynamic Makefile _pam_aconf.h.in
conf configure.in examples Make.Rules pgp.keys.asc
config.cache Copyright libpam Make.Rules.in README
config.log defs libpamc modules security

of which the following are directories :
bin, conf, defs, doc, dynamic, examples, libpam, libpamc, libpam_misc, modules, security.

Would you like me to compress and send you all the ~/Downloads/Linux-PAM-0.77 ? (3MB uncompress)

Hello,

Yes, you can do that. Then I'll have a look if I can find something that gives you a complete list of what to delete/change in order to get your system to the previous state.

Kind regards,

Eric