UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,

I still don't know if there's a standard way to do this. I'm hoping there's a *more or less* standard way to do this across linux platforms but the platform in question is Gentoo.

Let's say I download a source tarball as tar.gz and I do the typical

Code:

gunzip app_to_install.tar.gz
tar xvf app_to_install.tar
cd app_to_install/
./configure --options-here
make
make install

I now have files in lots of parts of the OS. How can I uninstall the application again? I've never seen it mentioned in any README or INSTALL files. I only have remote access to this particular server so no GUI methods please.

I know I could just hunt around a delete all the directories it's made but I'd be guarunteed to miss things and maybe cause system inconsistencies. Is there a roughly standard way to do it?

Cheers,

d11

NOTE: I say this is Gentoo but `emerge -C package' wont work I dont think when it's not installed using `emerge'.

Most Makefiles contain the target `uninstall` that lets you uninstall a package. However, once you have trashed the build directories, the local configurations made inside will naturally be lost and thus the uninstall will not work. So, if you have a potential need for uninstall, use a package management system or you may need to save the build directory for use later.

Your mileage may vary.

OK so to save space does this make any sense?

Take for example the PHP5 insatllation:

Code:

gunzip php5.x.x-versionstuff.tar.gz
tar xvf php5.x.x-versionstuff.tar
cd php5.x.x-versionstuff
./configure --with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql --disable-libxml2
make
make install

Okie doke! PHP5 is installed and from what I gather from your note, w/out a package manager `make uninstall' would remove it?

The directory 'php5.x.x-versionstuff' checks out to be about 80MB (it was about 11MB when i downloaded it! lol). Anyway, will tar.bz2'ing it and storing it for later use affect anything. I dont see how although I tried tar.bz2'ing one so I could recompile with new options and when doing make after reconfiguring it gave errors about truncated files --> Might be sheer coincidence that I'd bzipped it though.

Thanks for the tip about `make uninstall'