The one thing I hate about Linux

by Brad Linder Oct 5th 2008

There are plenty of things to love about a modern desktop Linux distribution like Ubuntu 8.04. It's got nifty desktop effects, comes with an office suite, web browser, media player, and pretty much anything else you need for day to day computer user. And there's a huge list of applications you can install with the click of a mouse.

But there's one thing I absolutely hate. And that's the fact that while package managers like Synaptic and apt-get make it incredibly easy to install all sorts of applications, uninstalling is another matter.

I wanted to see if I could get some audio editing tools up and running on my Eee PC 1000H today. I could have just tried installing Jack and Ardour, but I decided to go all out and install Ubuntu Studio's audio packages. I opened a terminal, typed in "sudo apt-get install ubuntustudio-audio," and after downloading 300MB of files and unpacking them to take up 600MB on my desktop I was all set. Dozens of utilities has been installed, most of which I didn't have any intention of using. After playing around a bit, I couldn't figure out how to playback audio in Ardour, the one app I really wanted to use. And Ardour crashed about 70% of the time I tried to launch it.

So I decided to uninstall using the same method. I opened a terminal, typed "sudo apt-get remove ubuntustudio-audio" and received a message saying I could free up 49.2KB. Only two packages would be uninstalled, and almost all of the audio applications I didn't need would stick around, eating up hard disk space.

Apt-get makes it incredibly easy to install software. It's not so easy to remove it. It looks like my best bet is to go through and remove the applications I don't need one by one. I'm amazed how often I run into this program.

If you don't tend to install a lot of programs that you later wind up uninstalling, Ubuntu's a great operating system. If you enjoy testing out new software, and value both your hard drive space and your free time, Ubuntu may not be for you.

I haven't played with Fedora, SUSE, or PCLinuxOS lately. Anyone know if any of them have a package manager that makes it easier to remove applications?

Update: Thanks to mcdope, I managed to find a solution. But it was so non-intuitive that I'm going to stand by my headline. Uninstalling applications needs to be much simpler in Linux.

Basically, apt-get autoclean, apt-get autoremove, and apt-get --purge remove did nothing for me. What helped was installing the debfoster package and then running it. This shows a list of all packages that were installed along with ubuntustudio-audio (or any other package). If you select "y," you can keep a package. Selecting "n" removes it -- but not the other packages that rely on it, as I figured out the hard way.

So I had to reinstall ubuntustudio-audio, run through the whole process again, and this time select "p" for purge." That finally removed most of the apps that had been installed as part of the package and cleaned up 519MB of disc space. Finally, I ran apt-get autoremove which seemed to cleanup a few more loose ends.

Thanks for all your suggestions!

Tags: apt-get, ardour, audio-editing, jack, linux, package-management, package-manager, synaptic, ubuntu, ubuntu-studio, ubuntustudio, ubuntustudio-audio

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

mcdope said 2:25PM on 10-05-2008

#apt-get remove --purge yourpackagehere
#apt-get clean

and then manually purge stuff that may not be useful anymore (careful here) to your heart's content.

#debfoster
#deborphan

Brad Linder said 2:49PM on 10-05-2008

Wow, that was totally not obvious. I had tried apt-get remove --purge, apt-get autoremove, and apt-get clean. But debfoster seemed to do the trick. I'll update the post, thanks!

jeff said 2:31PM on 10-05-2008

I think you have to go under System, Adminstration, removed orphaned packages. If I am not mistake, this should prompt to remove dependencies that are no longer tied to an application.

Klerud said 2:42PM on 10-05-2008

#apt-get autoremove

Does the trick for me

Jash Sayani said 3:04PM on 10-05-2008

If I had to write this post:
1. Edit title to: Things I hate about Linux
2. Word Limit: 10,000 Words....
3. Points to cover: Hmmm.... Hundreds !!!

One bad experience: Installing Apps (Skype specially) on OpenSuse!! No Setup file. A bunch of Terminal commands!!! The MS-DOS era has gone !!!!!!!

GAM said 8:47AM on 10-09-2008

Another WIMP, huh?

(WIMP=Windows Icon Mouse Pointer)

As you learn more about operating systems you will find that you can achieve far more in a shorter amount of time if you learn to use a command-line interface (CLI), and making a reference to an "MS-DOS era" in this regard tells far more about you than anything else.

TheDonkey said 3:07PM on 10-05-2008

Now I'm not Linux expert and am still learning with setting up my first server, but somehow somewhere I read that it's better to use Aptitude because it handles uninstalls well, ie it'll get rid of everything.
Personally I still use Apt-get
It's sorta like the switching from windows to linux thing, everyone uses Windows(Apt-get) even though Linux(aptitude) is better.

HD said 3:12PM on 10-05-2008

Dude you should have gone to synaptic and searched for the software installed. Then just selected and un-installed them. Else try Open Suse. I personally feel it much more better than Ubuntu. And if u have particular packages u want 2 install, I'm pretty sure u can get them from Ubuntu's website and install them from Yast (Open Suse's install manager).

Bufsabre said 3:13PM on 10-05-2008

go old school and use aptitude, it takes longer to install but when you remove the files it does a much better and cleaner job

Molly said 5:11PM on 10-05-2008

"on my Eee PC 1000H"

ah yes, i remember you actually posting over at eeeuser.com ... small world :)

Jarek said 5:20PM on 10-05-2008

Aptitude fixes a lot of the problems apt-get has. Use it, you won't regret it.

headless said 5:48PM on 10-05-2008

Well ubuntu studio-audio is a metapackage,so aptitude would certainly be a more suitable method of installing it.
Or search Synaptic's history to see what came along with it and remove them.
Although I don't quite understand why did you have to install 300Mb of applications when you needed only one or two.
I guess you have to learn some things the hard way sometimes.

Cassiano Bertol Leal said 5:50PM on 10-05-2008

Hey, man! Since you're already using the terminal, instead of using apt-get, have a go at aptitude.

Most of its syntax is the same as (or very similar) to apt-get's, but it keeps track of what was installed because you told it to and what was installed because it was a dependency of some other package.

Every time you select to uninstall a package, it runs through its dependencies and suggests the removal of all that are not dependencies of another installed package.

So, 'aptitude install ubuntustudio-audio' would install the package and its dependencies, and 'aptitude remove ubuntustudio-audio' would remove the package and all of its automatically installed dependencies.

This kind of functionality should be migrated to synaptic / apt-get at some point (hopefully sooner than later)!

Cheers, mate! Don't give up. The tools are there and are getting easier and easier to use!

Jeffrey said 6:01PM on 10-05-2008

I think that linux package managers just need to write a good uninstall script to get things to work right (or at least a message should pop up in your terminal at the end of the "uninstall" telling you to remove orphaned packages). =] thanks for the great work providing so many packages guys, keep up the good work =]

Metapackages (packages which describe other packages) are actually really straightforward and make a lot of sense (it's basically an easy way to install a bunch of packages - all it is is a package that has all the packages you want as prerequisites so they're forced to be installed), now if only the implementation were better...

And for my two cents worth, this implementation is much better than windows uninstallers which can be finicky sometimes, and often do leave a bunch of registry entries behind.

LinuxCanuck said 7:26PM on 10-05-2008

The console works great if you know the exact commands. If not, you end up with the kind of problem you mention. The trick is to learn the proper commands or to use the GUI. Half knowledge does not work well as you found out.
From the GUI, you can choose to remove (files) or completely remove (files and settings). From the commandline you have more control as several people have been quick to point out, if you know what to type.
To suggest that the distro is deficient simply because you chose to solve the problem a certain way is unfair if that way was guaranteed to fail due to lack of experience. However, next time you will know because we learn best by hands on experience.
Thanks for sharing success and failure. From this we all learn and move ahead.
Ubuntu 8.04 is a solid distro which I have used since alpha and I am really looking forward to Intrepid which I have used since alpha. Look forward to faster loading and snappier performance.

Jon Benge said 7:29PM on 10-05-2008

Hello? If you want to remove packages that have been left over just run "aptitude dist-upgrade or aptitude -f install. Don't rely upon apt-get. Your best bet is to involke "sudo debfoster -n" and uninstall anything you don't need. :-}

FeedME said 8:42PM on 10-05-2008

That's kinda unfair. Windows installer leave behind a tone of crap on your computer. At lease in Linux you know something has been left behind. I don't know about Mac but since it's based unix I would assume under the shiney exterior it'sthe same.

wirenik said 10:29PM on 10-05-2008

This isn't a problem with Linux; it's a problem with apt. Only the people who use apt, which is to say people who use the distributions that use apt, like Ubuntu and Debian, have this problem. You don't want to go around pointing fingers at Linux when your complaints actually only has to do with one single program. :)

Andrew Pollack said 10:29PM on 10-05-2008

Brad, I applaud you for calling this out. I use linux for my servers when at all possible, and since they're usually remote from me I do most of my work at the command line from a secure shell.

I've long felt that with all the criticisms of Windows and all the people predicting the rise of the linux desktop are missing some key things that have to be addressed before that can happen.

What you're talking about here is one of them.

Say all the bad things you want about Windows -- I sure do -- but for a system that an end user can manage, one that is tolerant of adding every cheezy download you read about, then quickly removing them; linux just isn't up to the task yet. I wish it were.

Bufsabre said 2:56AM on 10-06-2008

totally didnt realize that this many people were fans of aptitude, you never see [sudo aptitude install] on ubuntuforums anymore

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