removepkg − remove Slackware and Tukaani packages.
removepkg [−−warn] [−−verbose] [−−quiet] [−−root /otherroot] packagename [packagename2...]
removepkg removes a previously installed Slackware package, while writing a progress report to the standard output. A package may be specified either by the full package name (as you’d see listed in /var/log/packages/), or by the base package name. For example, the package foo-1.0-i386-1.tgz may be removed with any of the following commands:
removepkg foo-1.0-i386-1.tgz
removepkg foo-1.0-i386-1
removepkg foo.tgz
removepkg foo
When deleting files, removepkg will analyze the contents of the other packages installed on your system, and will only delete the files that are unique to the package being removed. Similarly, the installation scripts for all the other packages will be considered when deciding whether or not to delete symbolic links from the package.
Removing a package (as well as installing one) can be a dangerous undertaking. For this reason, there is the −−warn option available. When you use this, removepkg will not actually remove any files or links, but will output a detailed report of what it would do if you actually did remove the package. It’s suggested that you do this (and maybe pipe the output to less ) before removing packages to make sure you’ve backed up anything that might be important.
When removing a package, its original file index will be moved from /var/log/packages to /var/log/removed_packages. Likewise, its installation script will be moved from /var/log/scripts to /var/log/removed_scripts.
−w, −−warn
Generate a report to the standard output about which files and directories would be removed, but does not actually remove the package.
−v, −−verbose
List all the files being removed. Normally only warnings and errors are shown, e.g. if some files were not found.
−q, −−quiet
Hide all messages except the most fatal errors (which should never happen;).
−R /otherroot, --root /otherroot
Remove the packages from a location other than / (the default) as the root of the filesystem. Setting the ROOT environment variable does the same thing.
If two packages have files that overlap, but the directory in the packages differ because of a symlink (or symlinks), removepkg deletes the overlapping file(s). I have experienced this bug once in practice but most people probably never have this problem. Triggering the bug seems to require using third party packages. Note that you will not experience this bug if you have a symlink like /opt->/usr/local/opt; the overlapping files in this case are needed.
Practical example: Make package foo which has the file /opt/foo/test.txt and the symlink /opt/bar->/opt/foo, and install the package. Make another package named bar which has the file /opt/bar/test.txt, and install this package too. Now we have installed two packages which have an overlapping file but with a different path. Remove the package foo and see how it removes also /opt/foo/test.txt even when the same file exists in package bar.
Patrick J. Volkerding <volkerdi at slackware.com>, with enhancements by Christian Franke <c.franke at acm.org>
Revised for Tukaani Linux by Lasse Collin <lasse.collin at tukaani.org> and Ville Koskinen <w−ber at iki.fi>
pkgtool(8), installpkg(8), removepkg(8), upgradepkg(8), viewpkg(1), explodepkg(1), makepkg(1), convertpkg(1), makerepo(1)