[Tfug] Clean "uninstalls"

[Bexley Hall]

Hi, Zack,

> It's faster and easier to set up an automated deployment
> system than to try to undo what had come before.   Almost every OS has
> this (Redhat = kickstart, Windows = RIS, Mac OS X = System Image
> Utility/Netboot), so learning those will get you there
> faster.

You probably missed my comment re: "appliances" vs. "desktop
computers".  :-/

Imagine installing one or more "third party apps" on the
GPS unit in your car.  Now, you decide that app #2 sucks
(or, perhaps you just want to reclaim the resources that it
consumes).  Ideally, you want to be able to remove app #2
in such a way that the resulting system looks like *only*
apps #1 and #3 were (EVER!) installed -- no remnants of
app #2 at all.

Forcing a user to have a secondary computer set up just
to "support" the GPS unit in the car is a *huge* tax on
the user.  A system in which you *can't* do what I've
described leaves the user with "hard reset" as the only
remedy for the user who has installed an application that
he "regrets" installing, later.

> If your goal is to maintain data on the system, good
> luck... other
> than putting user data on a different partition, or keeping
> excellent
> backups, there's not a good way to do this.