What's the opposite of 'make install', i.e. how do you uninstall a library in Linux?

While running

./configure --prefix=/mingw 

on a MinGW/MSYS system for a library I had previously run

'./configure --prefix=/mingw && make && make install' 

I came across this message:

WARNING: A version of the Vamp plugin SDK is already installed. Expect worries and sorrows if you install a new version without removing the old one first. (Continuing)

This had me worried. What's the opposite of 'make install', i.e. how is a library uninstalled in Linux? Will 'make clean' do the job, or are there other steps involved?

Solution 1:

make clean removes any intermediate or output files from your source / build tree. However, it only affects the source / build tree; it does not touch the rest of the filesystem and so will not remove previously installed software.

If you're lucky, running make uninstall will work. It's up to the library's authors to provide that, however; some authors provide an uninstall target, others don't.

If you're not lucky, you'll have to manually uninstall it. Running make -n install can be helpful, since it will show the steps that the software would take to install itself but won't actually do anything. You can then manually reverse those steps.

Solution 2:

If sudo make uninstall is unavailable:

In a Debian based system, instead of (or after*) doing make install you can run sudo checkinstall to make a .deb file that gets automatically installed. You can then remove it using the system package manager (e.g. apt/synaptic/aptitude/dpkg). Checkinstall also supports creating other types of package, e.g. RPM.

See also http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/162 and some basic checkinstall usage and debian checkinstall package.

*: If you're reading this after having installed with make install you can still follow the above instructions and do a dpkg -r $PACKAGE_NAME_YOU_CHOSEN afterwards.

Solution 3:

If you have a manifest file which lists all the files that were installed with make install you can run this command which I have from another answer:

cat install_manifest.txt | xargs echo rm | sh

If you have sudo make install you will need to add a sudo to your uninstall:

cat install_manifest.txt | xargs echo sudo rm | sh

Solution 4:

Depending on how well the makefile/configure script/autofoo magic of the program in question is the following might solve your problem:

make uninstall

The problem is that you should execute this on the source tree of the version you've got installed and with exactly the same configuration that you used for installing.