Hi there,
I have two Programs I can not figure out how to delete them. These Programs are Heroic Games Launcher and Joes Own Editor ( A text editor for the console). They don’t appear in the GUI Add Software/Remove Software Program. They are not installed as Flatpaks or Snaps. Is there a right pacman command for that? I know that you remove Software with the pacman -R command, but i don’t know the right name of the application, basically what to type after pacman -R.
Any Ideas?
Thanks for help
the respective names are likely:
joe
and
heroic-games-launcher
or
heroic-games-launcher-bin
If you inspect the desktop launcher for the program, you can see the name of the binary that is executed
and then can use pacman -F or pacman -Qi to search for the package this binary belongs to.
It may be better to use pacman -Rns instead of pacman -R
but: inspect the output (what will be removed) before you commit.
Where can you see which binary file is being executed when you right-click the desktop icon?
Mod edit:- Only English is permitted in the English areas of the forum. To use any foreign language, please begin a topic in the appropriate language category. Your content has been translated to English.
Forum rules: english here 
That depends a bit on your desktop environment.
I can only quickly explain this for Xfce:
Instead of a normal left-click, right-click and then select “Edit Application.”
The program’s name will then be displayed under “Command.”
It should work pretty much the same way in Plasma.
…we’re both going to get a reprimand for speaking German in the English section of the forum without warning.
Mod edit:- Only English is permitted in the English areas of the forum. To use any foreign language, please begin a topic in the appropriate language category. Your content has been translated to English.
@soundofthunder
Let’s hope we always stay consistent with that rule
with all the russian and french and whatnot posts that where answered by translating them to be able to read them and then responding (sometimes) in english …
… it can be overdone …
it had been already
No, unfortunately not. When I right-click, I only get the properties, and it just says it’s a desktop entry. So, right-clicking the desktop icon doesn’t give me any useful information.
The problem is, I can’t find the programs at all. Neither in the Software Center nor via Pacman. They’re not installed as Flatpaks or Snaps either.
Mod edit:- Only English is permitted in the English areas of the forum. To use any foreign language, please begin a topic in the appropriate language category. Your content has been translated to English.
Please read again - and switch back to english
I still don’t know which DE we are talking about - which one you use.
I know for a fact that it does work like I just described - because I just looked and did that here.
OK. I use the GNOME Desktop Enviroment. With Extensions.
… and? right click on the program icon does not get you anywhere?
How about you just try removing the things using the names I suggested?
joe
and
heroic-games-launcher
? 
When i click right I dont get any useful Informations. There is not this function, where i can look with binary is started by the desctop icon. And when i type in a terminal sudo pacman -R joe, the output is: Target not found. But, for heroic-games-launcher it worked. Thanks for that.
Ah - the magic of Gnome.
So easy that one can’t easily find the simplest of things …
I don’t know and will not search to find out.
What happens when you open a terminal and type:
joe
?
possibly type joe and then hit TAB one or two times (to trigger the autocomplete function)
If the editor opens:
which joe
btw:
I just installed joe in my Gnome VM
The program name is joe, it is in /usr/bin/joe
pacman -Qi joe
returned:
pacman -Qi joe
Name : joe
Version : 4.6-2
Description : Joe's own editor
Architecture : x86_64
URL : https://joe-editor.sourceforge.io/
Licenses : GPL
Groups : None
Provides : None
Depends On : ncurses
Optional Deps : gpm: console mouse support [installed]
Required By : None
Optional For : None
Conflicts With : None
Replaces : None
Installed Size : 1989,20 KiB
Packager : Unknown Packager
Build Date : Mi 03 Dez 2025 13:57:14 CET
Install Date : Mi 03 Dez 2025 13:58:16 CET
Install Reason : Explicitly installed
Install Script : No
Validated By : None
and I removed it with:
sudo pacman -Rns joe
You find joe when you type it in pamac’s gui (click the 
), provided that you’ve enabled AUR access.
Thank you Nachlese for your support. When I type joe in the terminal the editor starts.
When I type which joe the output is /usr/bin/joe. But when I type pacman -Qi joe the return is Error: The Package joe was not found. Isnt that strange? So, when I try to remove it by sudo pacman -Rns joe the return says: Error: Target not found: joe.
Any ideas?
One wonders how you got that thing installed … if the package manager doesn’t know about it’s existence.
One way to remove it could be to simply try to install it (again)
and then remove it.
But that may fail or you may have to force the installation, as all the files will already be present
and the package manager will tell you so and refuse overwriting …
The other way is to simply remove it “by hand”.
etc/joe/
etc/joe/ftyperc
etc/joe/jicerc.ru
etc/joe/jmacsrc
etc/joe/joerc
etc/joe/joerc.zh_TW
etc/joe/jpicorc
etc/joe/jstarrc
etc/joe/rjoerc
etc/joe/shell.csh
etc/joe/shell.sh
usr/
usr/bin/
usr/bin/jmacs
usr/bin/joe
usr/bin/jpico
usr/bin/jstar
usr/bin/rjoe
usr/share/
usr/share/applications/
usr/share/applications/jmacs.desktop
usr/share/applications/joe.desktop
usr/share/applications/jpico.desktop
usr/share/applications/jstar.desktop
usr/share/doc/
usr/share/doc/joe/
usr/share/doc/joe/ChangeLog
usr/share/doc/joe/NEWS.md
usr/share/doc/joe/README.md
usr/share/doc/joe/README.old
usr/share/doc/joe/hacking.md
usr/share/doc/joe/man.md
usr/share/joe/
usr/share/joe/charmaps/
usr/share/joe/charmaps/klingon
usr/share/joe/colors/
usr/share/joe/colors/default.jcf
usr/share/joe/colors/gruvbox.jcf
usr/share/joe/colors/ir_black.jcf
usr/share/joe/colors/molokai.jcf
usr/share/joe/colors/solarized.jcf
usr/share/joe/colors/wombat.jcf
usr/share/joe/colors/xoria.jcf
usr/share/joe/colors/zenburn-hc.jcf
usr/share/joe/colors/zenburn.jcf
usr/share/joe/lang/
usr/share/joe/lang/de.po
usr/share/joe/lang/fr.po
usr/share/joe/lang/ru.po
usr/share/joe/lang/uk.po
usr/share/joe/lang/zh_TW.po
usr/share/joe/syntax/
usr/share/joe/syntax/4gl.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/ada.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/ant.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/asm.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/avr.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/awk.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/batch.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/c.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/clojure.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/cobol.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/coffee.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/comment_todo.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/conf.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/context.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/csh.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/csharp.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/css.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/d.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/debian.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/diff.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/dockerfile.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/elixir.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/erb.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/erlang.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/filename.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/fortran.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/git-commit.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/go.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/groovy.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/haml.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/haskell.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/html.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/htmlerb.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/ini.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/iptables.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/java.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/jcf.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/joerc.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/js.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/jsf.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/jsf_check.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/json.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/lisp.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/lua.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/m4.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/mail.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/mason.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/matlab.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/md.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/ocaml.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/pascal.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/perl.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/php.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/powershell.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/prolog.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/properties.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/ps.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/puppet.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/python.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/r.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/rexx.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/ruby.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/rust.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/scala.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/sed.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/sh.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/sieve.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/skill.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/sml.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/spec.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/sql.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/swift.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/tcl.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/tex.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/troff.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/typescript.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/verilog.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/vhdl.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/whitespace.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/xml.jsf
usr/share/joe/syntax/yaml.jsf
usr/share/man/
usr/share/man/man1/
usr/share/man/man1/joe.1.gz
usr/share/man/ru/
usr/share/man/ru/man1/
usr/share/man/ru/man1/joe.1.gz
simply sudo rm each one -
it looks more daunting than it is, as many files are in dedicated directories and these can simply be removed recursively instead of one by one
… be careful not to rm -rf /usr/bin or /etc/ 
Now I remember how i installed it. I downloaded it from the official Website of JOEs. There is a Link to Sourceforge. The Download is a tar.gz archive. I just looked it up. In the archive there is a install shell script (install-sh). I think i installed it that Way by starting the Script. If this was the case (99% sure) would it makes sense that the pacman package manager didnt know about the package?
Yes, of course. That way you blindsided pacman …
On the upside:
just get that archive again.
If it has got an install script, it also has got an uninstall script
or some way to remove the files that the install script … installed.
ps:
I just looked at it - it is a source archive - the same that the AUR package uses.
make install builds and installs it - make uninstall does
Just follow the instructions to build it like you did the first time:
./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc
then make
then, instead of
make install
make uninstall
I can not find any uninstall script sadly. It is not so important to uninstall this program in the end. Its below 10 Megabyte or so I think. But thank you for your help, I learned a lot by this.
I had a quick look and I don’t see an actual uninstall script in the current tar.gz, but the Makefile.in has an uninstall target, so it is likely something like this will work:
/configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc
make
sudo make uninstall
I’ve not tried it, but it is basically the steps the INSTALL.md has for installing it, but for the uninstall target.
I just expanded on my post - it’s a source archive, the program is compiled and then installed
It can also be uninstalled using that same process.
See above @Pascal
the instructions which you likely followed back when …: