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The one thing I hate about Linux
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!
Comments
32
Subscribe to commentspipomoloOct 6th 2008 9:23AM
# apt-get autoremove ubuntustudio-desktop
Would have done the trick...
This is one of the few commands aptitude is missing, while compared to apt-get...
Claudio MirandaOct 6th 2008 9:23AM
To remove the packages ubuntustudio-audio depends, you can take a look at ubuntustudio-audio dependencies with the command
apt-cache depends ubuntustudio-audio
Then invoke dpkg -r on that list.
ShaneKOct 6th 2008 9:24AM
ubuntustudio-audio is a "convenience" package that pulls in pretty much every audio recording/manipulation package available. It's for people who want a "complete" audio setup. If you look at its dependencies in your package management software, you'll see what it's about to install. Personally, I've never bothered with it, since I know what I want, and just install that. For example, if you had just wanted Ardour, why didn't you just install that?
apt-get autoremove ubuntustudio-audio will NOT remove all the packages that it pulled in when you installed it. That's the intended behavior. Autoremove is for libraries that tend to have no dependencies that will be used by nothing else once the program they are supporting is removed.
This behavior basically comes down to a decision by the maintainers as to what is a program used directly by the user, and what is not. In the case of Ardour, it would pull in JACK , a bunch of sound libraries, and some python packages. JACK is considered a user program, because it has it's own interface (via comand line), while all the python and sound libraries have no direct interface, so they're candidates for apt-get autoremove. Since ubuntu-studio is pulling in a bunch of programs with user interfaces (some admittedly better than others) nothing is available for autoremove when you uninstall ubuntu-studio.
Ubuntu Tweak!Oct 6th 2008 9:24AM
Ubuntu Tweak 0.4.0 has a cool package cleaner which allows you to delete unnecessary packages with one click.
Here is an review: http://helpforlinux.blogspot.com/2008/10/sneak-peak-at-ubuntu-tweak-040-beta.html
ainstusharOct 6th 2008 1:57PM
Try archlinux. It has pacman as its default PACkage MANager. It works like a charm. There are tons of wrappers for it too. Archlinux really rocks.
Archlinux - (http://www.archlinux.org/)
Pacman - (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman)
JamesOct 6th 2008 12:42PM
So... yeah, the "one thing" I hate about Linux, as this article points out, is that unlike Windows or Mac where you might have to poke around a bit to find the one "right way" of doing something, there's a hundred ways of doing things, and most of those are subtly wrong in different ways.
jobeeOct 7th 2008 11:31AM
that just feel like the Application writers (developpers ..) are doing the same thing as they did for Windows .. badly written apps where the average user will face issues sooner or later .. Very often the OS is not bad - but the apps screws it because specification about libraries, registries, api, install/unistall procedures are not followed properly..
Today one thing is for sure and this is about security : Most security issues do not surface on the network on OS level but on application level..
things to think about
whiskeyOct 9th 2008 5:53PM
My take is that you might have not noticed that by making pulseaudio the default sound server, Ubuntu has some issues with sound.
pulseaudio is needed because of it's capabilities to broadcast audio via LAN (which by itself is a pretty cool feature).
While many applications will work with pulseaudio out of the box, some (like, say, Audacious) will die a horrible death (or nag-screen you and not play audio).
Maybe that's the reason why the Studio derivative Distro of Ubuntu doesn't seem to have it...
After two google searches i found this link:
http://ph.ubuntuforums.com/showthread.php?t=886253
(The search term that did the trick was uninstalling ubuntu studio trouble). This gives you basic instructions to remove audio-programs using apt-get but you could easily search each package with Synaptic, and then they give you a link where it details the other packages you get installed when you ask for the Ubuntu-Studio package.
Wanna hear what i LOVE about Linux, and specifically the Ubuntu Distro? The kind of support you get from other users on many places, that is, when you ask politely...
I have to give you credit though that this isn't intuitive, so maybe you should place a bug report (so it gets squashed before they release the next version?).
rotyyuOct 18th 2008 11:00AM
$ sudo apt-get autoremove
rizzyrexNov 1st 2008 8:14AM
Okey can somebody in simple terms what to do if I have already installed via apt-get? can i use aptitude to uninstall properly? or do i have to do something different?
MorganNov 2nd 2008 7:20AM
>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.
You want linux to be intuitive? No, you want linux to wipe your arse and baby feed you.
Use OSX if you can't take 4 seconds to google the right command. Honestly man.
Oh, and if you would have payed attention during installation, it asked you if you wanted to install all of those extra packages.
what aboutNov 2nd 2008 7:29AM
apt-get install ardour
apt-get remove ardour