bug#49878: Emacs Tarball Should Include Uninstall Script

bug#49878: Emacs Tarball Should Include Uninstall Script

[Abdorhman Ayman via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

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Someone on Debian forums encountered a system issue after compiling Emacs 27.2 from source, he suspects that his issue MAYBE related to Emacs, or maybe it's not, it doesn't really matter, what matters is that his report brought to my attention that Emacs tarball doesn't include an uninstall script. We need an uninstall script for user convenience.
https://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=149798

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bug#49878: Emacs Tarball Should Include Uninstall Script

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Abdorhman Ayman <Abdorhman.Ayman@protonmail.com> writes:

> Someone on Debian forums encountered a system issue after compiling
> Emacs 27.2 from source, he suspects that his issue MAYBE related to Emacs,
> or maybe it's not, it doesn't really matter, what matters is that his report
> brought to my attention that Emacs tarball doesn't include an uninstall
> script. We need an uninstall script for user convenience.

I'm not sure an uninstall script is practical -- we can't just delete
the files with the same names as those we installed, because we don't
know whether they're the same ones (or something added later by the
user).

I've never understood why any user would say "make install" at all --
Emacs works just fine without saying "make install".  Users should just
run it from where it was compiled.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#49878: Emacs Tarball Should Include Uninstall Script

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>
> Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2021 13:09:26 +0200
> Cc: 49878@debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> Abdorhman Ayman <Abdorhman.Ayman@protonmail.com> writes:
> 
> > Someone on Debian forums encountered a system issue after compiling
> > Emacs 27.2 from source, he suspects that his issue MAYBE related to Emacs,
> > or maybe it's not, it doesn't really matter, what matters is that his report
> > brought to my attention that Emacs tarball doesn't include an uninstall
> > script. We need an uninstall script for user convenience.
> 
> I'm not sure an uninstall script is practical -- we can't just delete
> the files with the same names as those we installed, because we don't
> know whether they're the same ones (or something added later by the
> user).

We have "make uninstall" -- why isn't that what's being requested
here?

> I've never understood why any user would say "make install" at all --
> Emacs works just fine without saying "make install".  Users should just
> run it from where it was compiled.

The idea is that after "make install" you can delete the source tree.

Also, without installing, the important executables will not
necessarily be on PATH, so you cannot easily invoke them without using
a full absolute file name.

Finally, this is a standard Make target that everyone expects (other
packages don't always work 100% correctly when invoked from the source
tree).

bug#49878: Emacs Tarball Should Include Uninstall Script

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> We have "make uninstall" -- why isn't that what's being requested
> here?

Oh, didn't know about that.  Hm...  Yeah, I guess it should do the
trick.  But it's not included in the tarball, I think?  Which was the
request, and I'm still sceptical about doing that, because it looks
pretty dangerous. 

>> I've never understood why any user would say "make install" at all --
>> Emacs works just fine without saying "make install".  Users should just
>> run it from where it was compiled.
>
> The idea is that after "make install" you can delete the source tree.
>
> Also, without installing, the important executables will not
> necessarily be on PATH, so you cannot easily invoke them without using
> a full absolute file name.
>
> Finally, this is a standard Make target that everyone expects (other
> packages don't always work 100% correctly when invoked from the source
> tree).

That's sort of my point -- there's a ton of software out there that
doesn't work unless you install it first.  Emacs is not one of those, so
people think they have to install it to use it.

I wonder whether it'd be practical to put a "Really install? You don't
have to" in the "make install" target.  Probably not.

I think what most people who're futzing around with Emacs git would want
is just to have a target that makes some symlinks from /usr/local/bin
(or whatever) to the current build directory so that emacs/emacsclient
lands in $PATH.  I don't think the size of the source matters most, so
my guess is that few people delete the source tree after "make install".

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#49878: Emacs Tarball Should Include Uninstall Script

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>
> Cc: Abdorhman.Ayman@protonmail.com,  49878@debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Fri, 06 Aug 2021 11:37:52 +0200
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> > We have "make uninstall" -- why isn't that what's being requested
> > here?
> 
> Oh, didn't know about that.  Hm...  Yeah, I guess it should do the
> trick.  But it's not included in the tarball, I think?

What do you mean by "not included"?  It's in the top-level Makefile.in
that _is_ part of a release tarball.

bug#49878: Emacs Tarball Should Include Uninstall Script

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> What do you mean by "not included"?  It's in the top-level Makefile.in
> that _is_ part of a release tarball.

Duh.  Too early in the morning...

Anyway, I think "make uninstall" should cover the user's request here,
so I'm closing this bug report.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no