Source code (tar.gz / tar.bz2)
Debian Packages (debs)
Red Hat Packages (rpms)

Source code

To uninstall from source it is easiest to keep the directory you installed from around after installation. Assuming that the directory you installed the application from was /home/user/src/foo-2.1.2 you will need to change into that directory as root. Once you are within that directory you need to issue the command make uninstall. A typical uninstall would look like this.

[root@host ~]# cd ~user/src/foo-2.1.2
[root@host /home/user/src/foo-2.1.2]# make uninstall
list='foo'; for p in $list;
do rm -f /usr/local/sbin/'echo $p|sed 's/$//'|sed 's,x,x,'|sed's/$//''; done make uninstall-man8 make[1]: Entering directory
'/usr/local/src/foo-2.1.2'
rm -f /usr/local/man/man8/foo.8 make[1]:
Leaving directory '/usr/local/src/foo-2.1.2'

If you get the error below, then you’re unable to run make install for the software package and should read the README and INSTALL files to see if there are any instructions on uninstalling. Failing that you will have to check documentation on the projects website / forums etc to see which files need to be removed from your system.

make: *** No rule to make target 'unistall'. Stop.

Debian Packages

Uninstalling DEB files is as simple as their installation, lets assume we installed the file foo-2.1.2.deb which provided the package foo. You would need to switch to root and run the dpkg command like so:

[root@host ~]# dpkg -r foo

If there are no error messages this will have removed the foo package from your system.

Red Hat Packages

Uninstalling RPM packages requires you to be root and use the rpm command. If the RPM installed was foo-2.1.2.rpm and provided the package foo you would uninstall it with:

[root@host ~]# rpm -e foo

If there aren’t any error messages you would have removed the application from your system. As with software installation it is recommended to use a package manager for removing software.