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I installed the git using this article. Now I want to uninstall the git. How to do it?

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  • 1
    Do you still have the source code which you downloaded and did make install with?
    – Hennes
    Nov 1, 2012 at 7:27
  • Yes, I have the source code
    – Mikhail
    Nov 1, 2012 at 7:29
  • What is the output of 'make uninstall' ? Not all Makefiles have this option, but many do.
    – Hennes
    Nov 1, 2012 at 7:33
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    make: *** No rule to make target `uninstall'. Stop.
    – Mikhail
    Nov 1, 2012 at 7:34
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    why -1? explain
    – Mikhail
    Nov 2, 2012 at 5:32

2 Answers 2

17

I found the solution here.

UPDATED 2.11.2012

If you were smart enough and used some non-standard prefix when configured Git so that it has been installed under a specific hierarchy, like under /opt/git, then just delete that hierarchy, recursively.

If not, then you could go like this:

1) Fetch the source tarball of exactly the version you built and installed, unpack.

2) Configure it exactly like you did with the original install with regard to installation locations (prefix, exec-prefix etc); supposedly you should just not override anything.

3) Create a temporary directory to perform installation, like this: $ mkdir /var/tmp/git

4) Install Git passing a proper DESTDIR variable to make: $ make DESTDIR=/var/tmp/git install The Git hierarchy will end up created under that temporary directory.

5) Use the created hierarchy to decide which files to delete under the real hierarchy ("/" itself).

The last step is where "the magic" happens so it bears more explanation. For instance, you could run

$ find /var/tmp/git -type f -printf '/%P\n' | xargs -n 10 rm -f

(as root) do delete the files installed by the first mis-installation into the root filesystem. The encantation above uses the /var/tmp/git hierarchy to print the list of files found, but it replaces the "/var/tmp/git" prefix in them with "/", so that the "/var/tmp/git/usr/bin/git" in the output will end up listed as "/usr/bin/git". This list is then piped to xargs which runs rm on the file names it reads in packs of ten (just to reduce the number of invocations of rm by one order of magnitude).

After dealing with files, run

$ find /var/tmp/git -type d -printf '/%P\n'

to inspect the list of installed directories. These require manual approach so just look at the generated list and think which of them you could safely rmdir from your system (these will be the directories like "/usr/libexec/git" or something like this; you wouldn't probably want to delete "/usr/share/man/mann" or something even if it's empty).

P.S. In the future never install anything into a system by running make install! Most makefiles these days do not support "uninstall" target as they are used to either installing into a private scratch location for testing or to make a package (.rpm, .deb etc) and then the package manager takes care of cleaning up. If you need to install something, try to find an official package or try to backport another official package from a more recent version of your OS, if available. As the last resort, try using the checkinstall tool which tries to create a binary package out of your make install run. This sucks, but still better than bare make install.

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  • Please expand some of the details found there. Bit-rot happens, and when that does this answer becomes useless.
    – sysadmin1138
    Nov 1, 2012 at 15:53
  • ok, I updated my answer
    – Mikhail
    Nov 2, 2012 at 6:41
  • Respect. it works
    – dotslash
    Feb 2, 2018 at 9:34
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    Summary: ./configure. sudo make && sudo make DESTDIR=/var/tmp/git install. sudo find /var/tmp/git -type f -printf '/%P\n' | sudo xargs -n 10 rm -f
    – Vahid
    Jan 10, 2019 at 19:28
3

I just went though 2691 lines of Makefile. Indeed no make uninstall. Drat.

In that case a workaround might be to use the make rpm option. Install the rpm (overwriting all installed files, which should be identical to the already installed files). Then de-install the rpm.

In all future cases build a package (RPM, yum, whatever). It makes maintenance so much easier.

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    Except typically make install puts stuff in prefix /usr/local whereas the rpm/deb/your-package-here run ./configure with different parameters so that the files they install end up with prefix /usr.
    – ptman
    Nov 1, 2012 at 7:47
  • I'm newbie in the CentOS. What command should I run? Can you explain more, please
    – Mikhail
    Nov 1, 2012 at 7:49
  • I ran the make rpm command. What should I do the next?
    – Mikhail
    Nov 1, 2012 at 7:55
  • Start with man rpm or 'rpm --help. It will probably tell you to use rpm -i packagename.rpm. However it might be best to ask the sysadmin at umbrella-web to help you. There is only so much we can do from a distance.
    – Hennes
    Nov 1, 2012 at 8:04

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