On Wed, 22 Apr 2009, Richard DeLaurell wrote:
This is undoubtedly a very "newbie" question, but I have seen this type of
error a few times recently:
pkg_delete: unable to completely remove directory '/directory.name'
pkg_delete: couldn't entirely delete package (perhaps the packing list is
incorrectly specified?)
This is more-or-less normal, especially if the application was ever used
before being deinstalled. This is often the result of configuration
files being altered --- which you might had done knowingly with an editor
or which might have been done by the application itself when you ran it.
If you used an editor, you might have left an artifact, like an editor
backup in the directory.
Generally it is a good thing. Many times the configuration will not change
in any fatal way, so you can run on the old configuration file until you
go through the new distribution configuration to see what, if anything, has
changed and what needs updating. Even if the old configuration won't work,
you are likely to want it handy as you edit the new configuration file,
because there is no point in reinventing the wheel on things that haven't
changed. At any rate, deinstall is doing the right thing when it doesn't
delete stuff that it can't identify positively as stuff that was installed.
It occurs at the end of a "deinstall" as a matter of updating a port "by
hand".
What is the proper procedure to correct this? Run "pkgdb -F"? Rm the
offending files/dirs by hand? Both?
If you really want to do this, you have to remove the files/directories by
hand. So far as the pkgdb is concerned, there won't be anything wrong
whether you do it or not.
The updated packages seem to run okay afterward if I ignore these errors;
however, I am certain that they are really just swept under the carpet for
the time being and will reemerge in the future (at a moment of maximum
inconvenience no doubt).
The only downside here is that you may accumulate a bit of kruft in
application directories --- generally no concern given modern drive sizes.
But as I have said, some of that kruft may be helpful at times. If you have
like a tidiness thing, I'd suggest you not delete the kruft but move it to
some backup directory and let it gather dust.
Very rarely there is a major shake-up in which it does matter --- such as
when xorg moved. In those cases there should be a heads-up in UPDATING.
Also, is "make deinstall" the same as "uninstall"?
I could be wrong because I never use anything other than 'make deinstall'
but I don't find an 'uninstall' target in the port makefiles. A few
applications have a uninstall command, and that is not the same thing.
IOW, I don't know.
--
Lars Eighner
http://www.larseighner.com/index.html
8800 N IH35 APT 1191 AUSTIN TX 78753-5266
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