For users of Debian 12, which installation method provides more functionalities or features? And which installation method provides a clean uninstall?

[Vencent Valerian]

Attention: The developers

I am a user of Debian 12, 64bit, English.

On https://veracrypt.fr/en/Downloads.html, there are two different installers available. They are:

veracrypt-1.26.14-setup.tar.bz2

and

veracrypt-1.26.14-Debian-12-amd64.deb

(1) If I choose veracrypt-1.26.14-setup.tar.bz2 to install Veracrypt, will the installed Veracrypt provide more functionalities/features compared to when I install said software using veracrypt-1.26.14-Debian-12-amd64.deb?

(2a) If I choose to install Veracrypt by using veracrypt-1.26.14-setup.tar.bz2, I can uninstall it by typing the command sudo uninstall-veracrypt.sh. Will all the installed files be purged from my Debian or not?

(2b) If I choose to install Veracrypt by using veracrypt-1.26.14-Debian-12-amd64.deb, I can only uninstall it by typing the command sudo apt purge veracrypt. Will all the installed files be purged from my device?

Thanks for your reply.

P.S.: I apologize if the above topic has been posted and answered; in which case, could you point me to the archived post please?

[morton]

Generic Linux installer allows not to install VeraCrypt but just unpack it, the rest is the same.

The files are installed in following locations

/usr/bin/veracrypt
/usr/bin/veracrypt-uninstall.sh
/usr/sbin/mount.veracrypt
/usr/share/applications/veracrypt.desktop
/usr/share/doc/veracrypt/
/usr/share/mime/packages/veracrypt.xml
/usr/share/pixmaps/veracrypt.xpm
/usr/share/veracrypt/

by reading eracrypt-uninstall.sh we see

rm -f /usr/bin/veracrypt
rm -f /usr/sbin/mount.veracrypt
rm -f /usr/share/applications/veracrypt.desktop
rm -f /usr/share/pixmaps/veracrypt.xpm
rm -f /usr/share/mime/packages/veracrypt.xml
rm -fr /usr/share/veracrypt
rm -fr /usr/share/doc/veracrypt
...
rm -f /usr/bin/veracrypt-uninstall.sh

[Vencent Valerian]

@morton-f

I would appreciate it if you could answer my Questions (1), (2a) and (2b) to the point. Thanks.

[morton]

1) VeraCrypt functionality is the same for both installation variants except generic installer additionally allows just unpack VeraCrypt without installation.
2a) Linux rm used in the uninstall script physically removes specified files or directories. The list of installed and removed by script files (see my comment above) is identical.
2b) apt purge do what purge does: uninstalls the package and its dependencies, removes configuration and associated files and updates the package database to reflect the removal. Purge will not removes files from apt cache and if they are still there command apt clean will remove all files from apt cache.