Hey guys. What’s up? I would like to know if it’s possible to keep all the files generated by an application in a specific folder, like, when I downloaded blender I got a folder called blender-3.3.1-linux-x64 and the applications, icons, configuration file and everything is inside of it, if I delete it I would completely erase the files related to this application.
So I’d like to do exactly that with other applications, preventing those from creating lots of other files in different folders on the disk. Or I would like to know if there is any method of uninstalling an application by tracking the files that were created and removing them.
I searched about it and found the command pacman -Rscn application-name but still, many files created by the application, for example in the .local and .config folder, remain there after uninstallation.
Good news. We have package managers to do exactly that. (Well, not files that were created - see next paragraph - but files that were in that package to begin with.)
Bad news. You have to delete those yourself. (and anywhere else in your $HOME).
You could use containers though, eg. flatpak or docker.
That goes against how the Linux file/folder structure is designed. Here is a good article explaining that. The tldr is that its laid out to avoid duplication and allow other programs to reuse files other programs use.
For many years - long time ago - I was confused by the Linux filesystem. After many years of usage I have come to appreciate the structure - especially how the Arch package management system.
I have banged my head against dll-hell on Windows and during my first interaction with Linux in the form of Debian, Redhat, Suse et.al.
The Arch pacman is the best pacage manager - it beats apt, dpkg and dnf in every aspect - so when removing an application using pacman - it is gone - not your personal configuration though - which is why reinstalling an application which is dysfuntional due to configuration issues will not work the way it works on Windows.
They are user generated and therefore the package manager has no knowledge of those - and thus you have to do some cleaning on your own - like mummy hotel - where your mom doesn’t do it for you
