On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 4:34 PM, Grant <emailgr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> If you are installing a package by hand and wants to revert back to
>> the previous state, best is to :
>>
>> - when you ./configure it, use the various --prefix directives (do a
>> ./configure --help for information on that)
>> - when you want to remove, make uninstall in the source dir (so don't
>> remove it!)
>> - if it does not have a remove, usually if you install it inside
>> /home/${username}/whatever, then removing that is fine.
>>
>> Best thing though is to write an ebuild and then Portage will sandbox
>> the build so it knows every file that has been installed.
>>
>> The package knows where to link to when it goes into the ./configure
>> stage and won't act like windows, installing stuffs into registry or
>> the like ... everything's nicely contained inside /lib and /share
>> folders (except /etc files ...which you can safely ignore them there -
>> those are just text files and you'll know where they are anyway if you
>> intend to configure miro)
>
> Thanks everyone. I've never been open to manual compile/installation
> but I can give it a try now.
Once you learn the basics, most programs are the same (configure/make)
and it's not so bad. Obviously the advice to read the README/INSTALL
files is golden, they will almost always tell you what you need to
know.
On my home PC I used to tri-boot OS/2 (my first love), Win95
(wintendo) and Slackware (version 2 or 3?), so back then I think
everything had to be manually configured and compiled pretty much. I
guess it all seems kind of obvious once you already know how to do it.
We've come a long way since then. :)
