how to uninstall Racket 5.3.6?

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Norman Ramsey

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Jun 21, 2019, 3:23:45 PM6/21/19
to racket...@googlegroups.com, n...@cs.tufts.edu
I have an installation of Racket version 5.3.6, which dates from late
2013. The installation platform is Debian Linux, and the installation
populated a lot of things into /usr/local/bin, which I suspect was the
default at the time. I now wish to upgrade to the current version,
but I have discovered that the current version is reluctant to install
over an existing version in /usr/local/bin. My system does not
contain a `racket-uninstall` script, and searching the documentation
does not turn up anything about how to remove an installation.

How can I uninstall Racket 5.3.6?


Norman Ramsey

Philip McGrath

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Jun 21, 2019, 7:34:26 PM6/21/19
to Norman Ramsey, Racket Users
One possibility is that you might have installed Racket via apt. A command like:
sudo apt list --installed | grep racket
should help to see if that is the case. If so, I think uninstalling the apt package would be sufficient.

-Philip


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Neil Van Dyke

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Jun 21, 2019, 8:43:37 PM6/21/19
to Norman Ramsey, racket...@googlegroups.com
Quick notes on both installing a new version, and then cleaning up the
old one...

INSTALLING NEW VERSIONS

Assuming you're not just using a Debian package, and want a
non-Debian-package install (such as for more rapidly picking up new
Racket versions, having multiple versions installed at once)...

One way to build and install the latest Racket is with
"https://www.neilvandyke.org/racket/install-racket-versioned.sh", which
will install to a directory like "/usr/local/racket-7.3/". Then you'll
want to put "/usr/local/racket-7.3/" ahead of "/usr/local/" in your
shell's executable search path (such as by editing your "~/.bashrc"
file, if that's where that's set).

You don't have to use that script -- the main thing is that you
self-contain a Racket install (or run-in-place source tree) in its own
directory tree, somewhere.  Preferably name that directory tree
descriptively, for what release version, build variant, or Git
branch/changes, like "racket-7.3", "racket-git-master",
"racket-branch-colon-keywords", etc.

CLEANING UP THE OLD MESS

"/usr/local" sounds like it wasn't from a Debian package.  Which still
leaves a few possibilities for how it was unfortunately installed to
"/usr/local".

I don't know offhand what uninstall was provided for 5.3.6 (though you
could download a source tree, and see if they have an uninstall script
or a `make uninstall` target).  Even if such a script/target exists,
there's a small chance it might not work for how those files got into
"/usr/local/".

If you have to *manually* clean up remnants of old Racket in
"/usr/local/", IIRC, there's more than one possible directory tree
layout it might be using, so it's harder to say exactly what filenames
remove, but something like this...

1. Make a directory like "/usr/local/racket-deleted" into which you'll
move the old files.

2. Look in your new 7.3 install tree for the kinds of file names you'll
want to move from the old "bin" and "lib" into "racket-deleted", and
move them.  Be conservative: if you're not sure whether a file is for
Racket, leave it where it is, or you might break some other program, or
even not be able to boot your computer and log in.

3. Then move files/directories from "include", "share", and "etc" (which
might all just be subdirectories named "racket").

4. Optionally rename "racket-deleted" to be more descriptive, like
"racket-5.3.6-deleted-manually-20190621".

5. "chmod 0 racket-deleted" or whatever you renamed it to.

6. Confirm that you can still reboot your computer and log in. Rebooting
should also cause the 7.3 path you previously added to the shell
executable search path environment variable to take effect everywhere,
even for your login process and desktop processes, so those might work
better.

Good luck.

Norman Ramsey

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Jun 26, 2019, 3:42:34 PM6/26/19
to Neil Van Dyke, racket...@googlegroups.com
> TL;DR: build a new version in its own tree, then use that as a
> guide to carefully deleting the old one from /usr/local by hand.

Sounds workable. If a bit unpleasant. Thanks!

> "/usr/local" sounds like it wasn't from a Debian package.

Alas not. I've never actually used a Debian version: I'm using Racket
for teaching, and it has it has always been *strongly* suggested that
I update to the latest version and not wait for Debian to catch up.


Thanks again,


Norman
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