[R-SIG-Mac] Help needed to fully UNINSTALL R 2.4.0 on Mac OS X 10.4.8 ( MacIntel)

[Simon Urbanek]

Andrew,

On Oct 18, 2006, at 4:05 PM, Andrew White wrote:

> I want to achieve a COMPLETE UNINSTALL of R from my Mac OSX system in
> order to start fresh.
>

There are two separate issues:

1) How to make Apple Installer to "Install" R instead of "Upgrade"?

Run the following in the Terminal:
rm -rf /Library/Receipts/R-Framework* /Library/Receipts/R-GUI*

In the rare case that you are non-admin user and the receipts were  
kept locally (I've never encountered this, though), you should also run
rm -rf ~/Library/Receipts/R-Framework* ~/Library/Receipts/R-GUI*

(Note: the meta-package may still show Upgrade although the R will be  
freshly installed because of the accompanying tools - see the custom  
install sheet for details)

2) How to remove all R from the system?

Run the following in the Terminal:
sudo rm -rf /Library/Frameworks/R.framework

And delete R.app from wherever you installed it (usually the  
Application folder)

If you installed additional tools (gcc 4.0.3) and you want to remove  
those, run also
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/gcc4.0

If you want to remove a specific R version, look into /Library/ 
Frameworks/R.framework/Versions and delete the version you don't  
like. Adjust the "Current" softlink or use RSwitch to select another  
R version.


> I cannot seem to find ALL the files to delete from my iMac in order  
> to avoid seeing "UPDATE" when I try to install a completely fresh  
> copy of R 2.4.0 Universal for Mac OS X.
>

Update is not a bad thing at all - it compares existing files, so it  
will do a fresh install anyway if you deleted previous version  
manually. Therefore in most cases you don't really care whether the  
Installer does an update or a fresh install - in terms of the  
installed product it makes no difference. The only difference is that  
Update will remove files in the old version that are no longer  
present in the new version - so update will affect the previous  
version (if present). This is why the ReadMe screen in the R package  
instructs you to delete the receipt (as shown above) if you want to  
keep your old version.

Note that "upgrade" will still keep all additionally installed  
packages in the old version such that you can use the GUI to re- 
install all packages you had in the previous R version (see previous  
post on R-SIG-Mac).

Cheers,
Simon