Software management in OS X?

I already understand that the software that is usually already included with the purchase of a Mac already covers a lot of needs if not most. And I also understand that there are a lot of third party software (commercial, shareware and freeware) that can be installed as well to cover extra needs. But I remember from my Windows time (many years ago) that it was always difficult to cleanly uninstall third party software. Also every application had its own method of installing itself on your system, making your system slow after a while and often requiring a clean system reinstall. With Linux, that problem was solved with so called package management software, such as dpkg or rpm. But how is this managed in OS X? Is there a package manager or other method to cleanly (un)install software?

 

Most applications don't expand themselves and invade your computer but for those that do, you can download a free program called Appdelete or use the shareware appzapper.

 

Press Cmd+Space, type in the name of the app you want to delete, drag the .app and the folder with the same name in Libraries to the trash, empty the trash.
An alternative is just to get Appdelete or something similar, which will do the first few steps for you automatically.

 

most app that comes with mac is package inside the .app file. it probably is the same one with linux "package management software" that u've just mentioned; after all, they're both UNIX-based system. the .app software will usually (not always) creates preference folder (/library/preferences) this preference file (.plist) will stores ur app settings. if you uninstall/delete an app; this .plist usually is left untouch so if u decide to reinstall ur program later the program settings is intact. this .plist will not affect ur computer performance, just waste disk space

i use appzapper to delete my software. this will cleanly uninstall any software.

update: wooky explain below, mac packaging system is not the same as linux one.

 

Not quite the same thing. Basically Mac's app consist of the whole application inside a folder/directory. Finder just conveniently hide the folder from being viewed/browsed without explicitally being asked to. Question is, this approach needs to whole app to be contained in a single folder. Problem with that is one can't reuse libraries that could be shared between apps, OR one has to standartize on a very strict set of libraries. Either way, the "dll hell" that plagues (not so bad since XP, I agree) Windows doesn't occur, but apps tend to be bigger. I'd say that today most space in apps is being taken by media not libraries or code, so this isn't a concern anymore and I quite like the simplicity and ease of management.

Linux packages are a different beast. Basically, you have a database of known libraries and their versions, and which apps use them. Supposedly this allows you to share everything between apps, keeping their size small, since the database keeps track of everything an app needs and download whatever it is missing for that app. In practice, sometimes you run into a "dependency hell"- you need a package to satisfy a dependency which needs another package and so on. All you need is one broken link to foobar the system. There are a lot of package management systems, and I'd say this happen more with RPM (used in RedHat/Fedora and derivatives). Sometimes the database also gets corrupted, and things can get messy. That said, when it works, it works well: you just select what you want to install and don't worry with anything else. Of course, this assumes *there is* a package available for your system/distro.

 

Let's not confuse Linux package management with the fact that OS X applications come in a sort of package They are entirely different things.

Other than that, wobbles post was a good description of what footprint an OS X app usually leaves on the system - the application package itself (what you double-click to start is actually a package containing the whole thing) and the various preferences.