Hello!
I’m wondering what the reason is that users (me) can’t uninstall Demo-Apps like “Mandelbrot” …, but also the app “TV” and others.
As they are not necessary for using Haiku, they should be able to be removed.
Would it be an idea to put them in users folder instead of the system folder?
I surely missed the discussion when the system folder went write only, but I feel a bit restricted if I can’t remove not necessary apps from my installation.
Maybe someone can help me understand this.
1 Like
i think then they need to be single packaged
I think it is mostly because nobody bothered packaging them separately, and/or because they were part of classic/installed BeOS apps?
Probably anything that is not directly about systems settings/configuration should be packaged separately.
Feel free to start creating some HaikuPort recipes to achieve that goal 
Currently all apps and prefs are packaged in the main haiku HPKG. When “single-packaging” things we need to be careful. If we let people (accidentally) uninstall HaikuDepot, SoftwareUpdater or Deskbar, they might get into trouble.
The OS and developers have to be able to rely on a fixed environment. What should be included there can be discussed, I suppose.
Until then, you can disable components you don’t want to see.
I agree, removing demo apps should be possible - maybe just re package them separately, so that this would be possible.
Whilst I’m also not in favour of a long list of apps in the main menu, I can live with it.
1 Like
Native haiku apps really don’t take a lot of place on disk. A good example is Medo that could fit on a floppy when a similar app on another system is at least ten times bigger.
So you can disable them or simply customize the menu to not see them but I’m not sure that it worth the effort.
Currently these apps are in the same package as other parts of Haiku. They could be moved to a separate package, but, since the apps are so small, that may result in more disk and RAM usage overall than keeping them inside the Haiku package, and larger download size for updates.
Do you really need to free 2MB (that’s the approximate size of the demo folder) from your disk? Is this a high priority thing to fix? Personally I don’t think so. But if someone does it we can merge the patch.
BeOS gives warnings when you try to change system folders in possibly damaging ways, but still lets you do it. (Hold down shift and confirm). Why should Haiku prevent me from making modifications to the system? Warning and discouraging fine. But I’m sick enough of Windows not letting me uninstall edge or any of the apps that are hidden in a folder I don’t have access to.
As I’m not in front of my Haiku machine, can I use terminal to sudo rm things I don’t want?
Haiku has similar alerts for important folders.
It’s the nature of Haiku’s packaging system. You can remove whole packages, but not single files contained within when the package is mounted.
There’s no sudo in Haiku. As above, the nature of packages prevents this.
You can, as also said before, disable components (apps, prefs etc) or unpack a package, remove whatever and repackage it.
However, you cannot simply delete system folders because in Haiku the directories are virtually mounted. If you really want to change something you have to change the corresponding package.
The problem is, you have to repeat this after the next system update.
I assumed the packaged nature of it was the reason. I was more referencing the “If we let people… …they might get into trouble”. If someone accidentally removes HaikuDepot, then they have a problem sure. But if they do it on purpose, that’s their business. Mainly a recommendation for the future. ‘:-)’
Would this be why there are certain folders that appear to be “missing” when viewing a Haiku drive from another Haiku machine?
Exactly, that’s because these folders are not mounted.
Maybe in this case such option as “Hide Demos” would be needed in the deskbar preferences? If there were more people who would be annoyed by unnecessary to them entries in the deskbar.
Perhaps move those that really demos to the extra package, keep the others in haiku package but put them in apps menu.
Just delete the entry if it is annoying to you.
You cannot delete (system) entry in Deskbar menu on Haiku.
Currently you can’t, because the “blue folders” are in /system/data/deskbar.
All we need to do is move them to /system/config/deskbar, then they can be deleted and replaced.
You still won’t be able to remove the demos themselves with this change, but you can have them out of the way.
1 Like
How about that all links in Deskbar menu would be customizable-removable? Like in BeOS. Any way if even all links are removed you still can access apps and prefs another way. “Hide blue folders” in Deskbar menu good option for achieving this.
…Maybe it would even be good to have in such case a keyboard shortcut to access those hidden system folders: Shift+click on menu?
1 Like
Installed packages should provide Deskbar menu links in the write protected portion of the virtual file system. Changes to the Deskbar menu should be supported via filter rules.
Reasoning is packages should not leave files across the file system because it will only lead to files scattered across the system over time when packages are changed.
I don’t know how files created outside of the write-protected virtual file system is handled, but they should be marked with attributes so they can be removed when the package is uninstalled, or at least identified from which package they did belong to.