Removing linux applications?

One thing that nagged me when I used linux is the confusion I had when removing programs. While it was easy to add programs (easier on a non-RPM system), there was an inherent issue in removing them.

Program A wants to be installed
this requires program B, C, and D
and while we are at it, it needs E, F, and G as well... but those are already present

Program A is a dummy file that links to the actual program B and support files for that program which is referred to as program C. Program D is some underlying support for applciations like B... E, F and G are similar to D but were dragged in by other programs.

I want to uninstall A. Done. The actual program, the direct support for that program, and some shared libraries that are used by nobody is still present though! I could remove them manually, sure... if I bothered to keep an exact list of installed packages when I pulled A down. Plus if I install another program later... perhaps it needs C... perhaps removing that will break stuff!

I know Windows is not perfect on uninstalls and tends to leave tidbits around the hard drive from prior installs. However, at least uninstalls proceed rather painlessly and most if not all pieces of the parent application are removed.

How easy is it to uninstall in an RPM or DEB system? What steps do you have to take? Is this a legitimate linux issue?

I think that's just an rpm issue. On gentoo, it's easy to remove applications, and the emerge depclean command will remove packages that you haven't explicitly installed and that aren't a dependency of anything anymore. I imagine apt has a similar function.

Gnufsh said:

I think that's just an rpm issue. On gentoo, it's easy to remove applications, and the emerge depclean command will remove packages that you haven't explicitly installed and that aren't a dependency of anything anymore. I imagine apt has a similar function.

Click to expand...

Apt actually doesn't have a similar function. For reverse dependencies, you must use aptitude on a debian system, and to remove a program with aptitude, you must install it with aptitude.

And depclean on gentoo systems removes some needed files sometimes. You always need to review what it wants to remove and verify that you don't need that stuff.

There are debfoster and deborphan for .deb based systems too.
That said: windows uninstall sucks. Yes it removes the start menu entries (sometimes). Maybe even most of the program files, but then there are config files, DLLs, etc. All lingering behind.

If I uninstall a program or lib in debian, know it's all gone if I also purge it. And the libs have their own packages so the package system still knows if it's there or not.

I don't say Linux is far superior in packaging, but it certainly is no worse than Windows.

But in both cases, the most important thing is to have good packages (humans, not the programs).

klingens said:

There are debfoster and deborphan for .deb based systems too.
<snip>

Click to expand...

I was using a Debian based system before (Ubuntu) and I ran into issues where if I wanted a program uninstalled that I would unknowingly uninstall a dummy package... so the program would still be there...

I didn't know about debfoster and deborphan though... more information? Also, with Synaptic, did it have a clean-up uninstall feature (or should I use another front-end)? If I wanted a relatively complete uninstall, what steps do I have to take? If I do "break something", how do I tell the package manager to look through the list of installed packages and bring down all dependencies again?

I did have problems with apt a long time ago when I was with Debian (the only time I was with Debian). It was on an upgrade from stable to testing... somehow locales was decided to be irrevelent and was uninstalled which caused Perl to break (it needed a locale) which broke apt (it needed Perl) which I fixed... by going to another distro! One last question is... will a clean uninstall that I was proposing cause the package manager itself to break in certain situations?

gt24 said:

I didn't know about debfoster and deborphan though... more information? Also, with Synaptic, did it have a clean-up uninstall feature (or should I use another front-end)? If I wanted a relatively complete uninstall, what steps do I have to take? If I do "break something", how do I tell the package manager to look through the list of installed packages and bring down all dependencies again?

Click to expand...

I dont know about debfoster, but deborphan finds packages that are no longer associated with other packages. Every once and awhile it will pick up something that doesnt need to be dropped, but thats happened like......twice, out of the entire time i've used deb based systems. And even then, when you setup deborphan with synaptic, you can look and make sure of what you are removing.

gruven said:

Apt actually doesn't have a similar function. For reverse dependencies, you must use aptitude on a debian system, and to remove a program with aptitude, you must install it with aptitude.

And depclean on gentoo systems removes some needed files sometimes. You always need to review what it wants to remove and verify that you don't need that stuff.

Click to expand...

I always review what it wants to remove, and it hasn't tred to remove something still needed yet.

For a complete uninstall (package files and config), you "purge" it

To try to automatically fix a borken system again: apt-get -f install. But it doesn't always work then.

neither apt nor perl needs locales. They give lots of annoying warnings about it when they miss it.

And unless you force something, you cannot break it by uninstalling: it won't do the uninstall unless you tell it to explicitly.

This is just another reason to use a distro with a good package management system. With gentoo, debian, or their derivatives, there are tools to handle this.

In an RPM based distro, there is no easy way that I know of to remove stuff.

Gnufsh said:

I always review what it wants to remove, and it hasn't tred to remove something still needed yet.

Click to expand...

It has removed a couple things that I still needed, but an "emerge -avuDN world" fixed it. Nothing major.