What's the opposite of 'make install', i.e. how do you uninstall a library in Linux?

Question

While running

./configure --prefix=/mingw 

on a MinGW/MSYS system for a library I had previously run

\'./configure --pref         


        

Answer 1

make clean generally only cleans built files in the directory containing the source code itself, and rarely touches any installed software.

Makefiles generally don't contain a target for uninstallation -- you usually have to do that yourself, by removing the files from the directory into which they were installed. For example, if you built a program and installed it (using make install) into /usr/local, you'd want to look through /usr/local/bin, /usr/local/libexec, /usr/local/share/man, etc., and remove the unwanted files. Sometimes a Makefile includes an uninstall target, but not always.

Of course, typically on a Linux system you install software using a package manager, which is capable of uninstalling software "automagically".