cleaning up source installs

[Allblack]

I was wondering how you actually clean up source installs?
I usually leave the extracted folders on my box. Since you run make install in these to install the software I guess this is where you run make uninstall to get rid of it. I assume make uninstall is the one you need.

Now, how do I do an uninstall if my source folder is gone? Also, how differs make clean from make uninstall?

Cheers

[bpark]

"make uninstall' will get rid of the binary files and libs that you just compiled. If you want to get rid of the source directory, you can simply delete it and it will not effect the installed binaries. I usually compress the source directory and gzip them using "tar -xzf" just in case I need to recompile them at a later time.

[Dillinger]

Make uninstall uninstalls anything it installed outside the directory, and make clean undoes any changes to the directory, like any make or config files or whatever.

[bpark]

Right,,
I mean to say "make clean." I apologize for this error.

[Allblack]

thanks guys,

So would I still be able to uninstall if the extracted folder is gone?
For example, Can I use "make uninstall programname" to get rid of a program after deleting the extracted folder?
If not, what would be the way to go.

[bpark]

Nope. Well, if you remember where the program files are installed, than you can. This is one reason to keep that source directory tarred and gzipped like I stated. Another thing you should be able to to do is just keep the makefile. Theoretically, that should be sufficient. Finally, you can just copy the commands under the target clean inside the makefile. The bad thing about this might be if the makefile uses lots of variables. Then you would have to look them up and set them acoordingly.