[gentoo-user] How do you remove packages made with --buildpkg?

[Matt Randolph]

First off, let me say that I know perfectly well that you can `emerge -C 
package_name` at any time.  That's not what I'm talking about.  What I 
want to do is to remove the built binary too.

Let me explain what I do and what I'm trying to do in more detail...

Sometimes, I like to be able to test several different ~arch versions of 
a package to see which one works best for me.  I may try switching back 
and forth between several different versions, possibly deciding 
ultimately that none of the ~arch versions are any improvement over the 
previously installed arch version, and so I re-emerge the old one.

If the program in question is rather large, I won't want to build it any 
more times than I have to.  Consequently, I use quickpkg on the 
original, and then --buildpkg on all of the testing versions.  This way, 
I only have to compile each package once, yet I can switch back and 
forth between them in mere seconds.

The problem with this scheme is that the built binaries aren't removed 
when you unmerge the corresponding package.  Actually, if they were, 
then this technique wouldn't work at all.  I have a very small hard 
drive so I can't afford to have these unneeded binaries cluttering up 
the disk.  I have to get rid of them somehow.

How the heck do you remove the old built binaries?  They aren't simply 
put in '${PKGDIR}/All' like the manual says.  There are a bunch of 
places that the different pieces go.  A bunch of symlinks and new 
directories are created too, IIRC.  It is a nuisance to remove 
everything by hand.  I wrote a script to do some of the legwork for me, 
but it's time consuming and requires a lot of user intervention.

Isn't there a tool to remove these old binaries?  Is there a command you 
pass to emerge?  I assume there's something really trivial and obvious 
that I've simply missed, but I'm getting tired of searching for it.

Thanks!

-- 
"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate" - W. of O.

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