The Problem
I am running a Ubuntu box, and from time to tome I install trusted *.deb packages from the Internet. Since Ubunu is a Debian derivate this works without any problem.
Have you ever tried to uninstall these packages via the software center ? … Well: It turned out that this is sometimes not possible through the software center. This article shows you how to do this via commandline.
The Solution
1.) Search for the package name
Before you can remove any packages you need to know the name of the package that should be uninstalled. The best option is to list them all. dpkg -l does the trick:
gue@box:~$ dpkg -l Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold | Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend |/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad) ||/ Name Version Architecture Description +++-=========================-=================-=================-======================================================= ii 9menu 1.9-1 amd64 Creates X menus from the shell rc abiword 3.0.1-1 amd64 efficient, featureful word processor with collaboration ii account-plugin-aim 3.12.11-0ubuntu3 amd64 Messaging account plugin for AIM ii account-plugin-facebook 0.12+16.04.201601 all GNOME Control Center account plugin for single signon - . . . . ii zip 3.0-11 amd64 Archiver for .zip files ii zlib1g:amd64 1:1.2.8.dfsg-2ubu amd64 compression library - runtime ii zlib1g:i386 1:1.2.8.dfsg-2ubu i386 compression library - runtime ii zlib1g-dev:amd64 1:1.2.8.dfsg-2ubu amd64 compression library - development
Dont forget - you can also pipe this list into grep to find your package:
gue@box:~$ dpkg -l | grep unwantedPackage ii unwantedPackage 2.1.0 amd64 gue@box:~$
2.) Remove / purge it
The second step is to remove the found package (in our example the *unwantedPackage) *via dpkg. If you want only the binaries to be removed then you have to remove the package, if you want to have the config files to be deleted as well then you have to purge the package.
Here is how you purge a package:
gue@box:~$ sudo dpkg --purge unwantedPackage [sudo] password for gue: (Reading database ... 620296 files and directories currently installed.) Removing unwantedPackage (2.1.0) ... Purging configuration files for unwatedPackage (2.1.0) ... Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme (0.15-0ubuntu1) ... Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.22-1ubuntu5) ... Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.13.3-6ubuntu3.1) ... Processing triggers for mime-support (3.59ubuntu1) ... gue@box:~$
That’s it - have fun !