Re: makefile uninstall somewhat aggressive?

[Hugh Sasse]

On Mon, 6 Mar 2006, Michael Piotrowski wrote:

> Hugh Sasse <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > Conventionally among GNU stuff LIBDIR is /usr/local/lib, and 
> > if anyone installed it there, they'd be rather shocked after an
> > uninstall.
> 
> Yes, but to be more precise: Apart from the actual libraries,
> typically a *subdirectory* is used.  In this scheme you have for
> example:
> 
>   /usr/local/lib/libpango-1.0.a
>   /usr/local/lib/libpango-1.0.so
>   ...
>   /usr/local/lib/pango/1.4.0/modules/
>   ...
> 
> Since Lout doesn't install any libraries you can get this type of
> setup by simply setting
> 
>   LIBDIR = /usr/local/lib/lout

Yes, that would work too.  Then the variable should be called something
else, I think, because that's LOUTLIBDIR really, rather than LIBDIR.
And, it should have the version number in there as well, I think. That
would allow people to try out new releases when their users are not
early adopters.

> 
> and you won't have any problems when doing a make uninstall, without
> needing a rule for every single file.

Agreed.  I think my difficulty was that the expected behaviour was not
entirely clear, so I thought it would be better to make the code do
the least harm.
> 
> Personally, I always install stuff under /opt/<packagename>, where you
> can easily see what you installed and you don't need anything more
> advanced than rm(1) to remove it ...

Doesn't that play havoc with your (LD_LIBRARY_)PATHs?
> 
> Greetings
> 
> -- 

        Thank you,
        Hugh