uninstalling -- registry

[statius]

I'm wondering about the proper procedure for, what in Windows, is called uninstalling a program. I don't mean just removing the program and/or its directory -- or, is that all that's required under UNIX type systems?

In W, programs often make modifications to the registry and, when uninstalling them, you must make sure that the registry retains no entries to the program you've removed, in order to ensure that remnants of the uninstalled program don't screw up the rest of your system. In the Linux literature that I've been readiing, I've found no reference to uninstalling, only removing. Could someone provide me with a breif precis on the proper method for removing programs (as opposed to files).

thx

Iain

[Evil Jeff]

As far as I know, in general there isn't "uninstall" in linux. There is only remove. If you have a package manager (ie rpms or debs, etc) you can uninstall those using rpm or dpkg. However, for most programs you simply remove all their components, and if you made a menu entry remove that too. That's about all. There is no registry in linux.

Evil Jeff
www.hellincorporated.com (http://www.hellincorporated.com)

[ndelo]

If you installed the program as am rpm, the command is rpm -e rpm_name (leave off the the i386.rpm extension). In SuSE, you can remove programs with YaST. if you installed the program from source, I really don't know. Hope this helps some. http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif

[teeitup]

Just to add to what the others said.

Removing a program in linux usually leaves directories behind. The same concept as windows, if the directory isn't empty it won't delete it. Config and special files created after the installwould be left behind. These can be safely removed manually once the remove has been performed.

Linux plays no tricks.

Debian's dpkg has a purge option that will remove everything, including config files.

Peace,



------------------
Don't take life to seriously, You'll never get out alive!
-Bugs Bunny-

[statius]

Thanks to all and, yeah, it was things like the config and special files that I thought might need cleaning up. I'm running Mandrake 6.0 and, so far haven't found anything that automates the process. I'm just so used to ghost entries being made to my system under W. I take it from what you're saying that, linux/UNIX programs won't insert/change files, alter configurations,etc. behind my back as part of the install process. This is a good thing, if it's true.

While we're at it though, is there any concept in linux/UNIX equivalent to the registry in W?

Merry X-mas,

Iain

[fsvara]

Usually programs that use configuration files have their configuration files in every users directory that has started this program (they get created when you start it). So a program that is called xxxyyy will
propably leave a file .xxxyyy behind in the users directory (where the dot means tht it is a hidden file), for example /home/itsme/.proggy. To view the hidden files in a directory (which are almost always config files), just type ls -a at the prompt, where the -a makes ls show hidden files, too. Now if you delete a program and you want it not to leave any configuration stuff behind, you can simply rm these dot-files.
Examples for very common dot-files are for example .bashrc, the config file for the bash shell, or .vimrc, the config file for the vim text-editor.
Everything windows programs would store in the registry Linux programs store in . files. I can think of only one exception right now, mozilla, which has a file called registry where it writes its data to, propably to make it easier for the programmers to switch between *nixes and windows.

[This message has been edited by fsvara (edited 22 December 2000).]