If you run the deinstallation tool from the installation media using runInstaller -deinstall, then help is displayed that guides you through the deinstallation process. You can also use the -home flag and provide a path to the home directory of the Oracle software to remove from your system. If you have a response file, then use the optional flag -paramfile to provide a path to the response file.

You can generate a deinstallation response file by running the deinstallation tool with the -checkonly flag. Alternatively, you can use the response file template located at $ORACLE_HOME/deinstall/response/deinstall.rsp.tmpl.

In the following example, the runInstaller command is in the path/directory_path, where /directory_path is the path to the database directory on the installation media, and /u01/app/oracle/product/12.2.0/client_1/ is the path to the Oracle home you want to remove:

$ cd /directory_path/
$ ./runInstaller -deinstall -home /u01/app/oracle/product/12.2.0/client_1/

The following example uses a response file called my_db_paramfile.tmpl in the software owner location /home/usr/oracle:

$ cd /directory_path/
$ ./runInstaller -deinstall -paramfile /home/usr/oracle/my_db_paramfile.tmpl

If you run the deinstallation tool using deinstall from the $ORACLE_HOME/deinstall directory, then the deinstallation starts without prompting you for the Oracle home path.

$ ./deinstall

In the following example, the deinstall command is in the path/u01/app/oracle/product/12.2.0/client_1/deinstall. It uses a response file called my_db_paramfile.tmpl in the software owner location /home/usr/oracle:

$ cd /u01/app/oracle/product/12.2.0/client_1/deinstall
$ ./deinstall -paramfile /home/usr/oracle/my_db_paramfile.tmpl