Re: Uninstall

[Per Bothner <bothner at cygnus dot com>]

> Ah, so you *only* want to solve the uninstall issue for Linux?

No, my ambitions knows no end!  But concentrating on GNU software
and Linux first makes most sense.  (By this I mean a standard for
GNU software that we could get at least the major Linux distribution
to accept.)

> Me, I'd like to have it work on NetBSD as well, which has yet another
> package system.

Yes, that would be nice.  But I would not bother trying to coax
them into going along (they are too small and too prone to going
their own way);  if they want to join, fine.  (I can't keep the
various *BSD groups apart, but at least some seem quite anti-GNU,
and not interested in following or contributing to GNU standards.)

> IMO, we *shouldn't* be tackling the issue of the One True Packaging
> System.  Not for EGCS.  It's well outside the scope of the project.

I agree.  It is just something that Needs To Be Done.  My point was
that without it, trying to hack 'make uninstal' so it is "useful"
seems like a waste of effort.

> I'd go so far as to say it's nearly irrelevant to the project.  If you
> want to do it, fine, but make it a separate project.

I want Somebody to do it.  I am overextended as it is.

> If you want to have "make uninstall" work, how about installing in
> some "standard" place in the gcc tree a list of files and directories
> to be deleted, and maybe a script to actually delete them?  Then "make
> uninstall" can look for and run that script.  (Updating a previously
> installed tree makes this a little subtle, but not very.)

But this is exactly what I'm talking about!  The only difference is
that I would like to lobby RedDat/Debian/NetBSD/... to use the
same (or a superset of) the same "standard".

> But don't dictate that if I want to be able to uninstall EGCS easily I
> have to use RPMs on my NetBSD system.

You must be responding to some other message than mine ...  I was
specifically saying that that is a *different* standardization issue.

	--Per Bothner
Cygnus Solutions     bothner@cygnus.com     http://www.cygnus.com/~bothner