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I recently installed ubuntu-restricted-extras but it is causing bugs in Google Chrome, and I want want to remove it. However, when I do it using sudo apt-get autoremove or sudo apt-get purge it doesn't seem to be completely removed because when I was installing it, a lot of packages got removed and others got installed.
My question is: How do I make things just like they was before installing ubuntu-restricted-extras?

Thanks.

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  • 1
    That package should not cause "bugs" in Google Chrome. Quite a few of us have the restricted extras installed and Google Chrome works perfectly. Perhaps you'd like to explain what exactly are the bugs? Maybe there's another cause for them?
    – user25656
    Jul 29, 2013 at 12:26
  • I think that restricted extras is causing the bug because Chrome was working fine before installing it. But now, when I try to publish something on Twitter, start from the beginning even though I put it at the end.
    – Mohamed
    Jul 29, 2013 at 16:24

4 Answers 4

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You can use synaptic. If you don't have it installed, just press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open Terminal. When it opens, run the command(s) below:

sudo apt-get install synaptic

Once done, open synaptic, by typing it in dash, and once it opens search for ubuntu-restricted-extras, right click, and choose Mark for Complete Removal, and then click on Apply.

enter image description here

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  • Thank you. But is this going to reinstall the packages that were removed during the ubuntu-restricted-extras installation?
    – Mohamed
    Jul 29, 2013 at 16:24
  • No. Packages removed probably are not needed anymore. Any package in particular you're concerned about?
    – Mitch
    Jul 29, 2013 at 17:24
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The issue you are having is that the ubuntu-restricted-* metapackages use recommendations instead of dependencies. If you want to completely remove the packages recommended by either of these, a safe way is to do it manually (tested on Ubuntu 14.04.3):

  • apt-cache show ubuntu-restricted-extras
  • apt-cache show ubuntu-restricted-addons
  • Take note of all the "Recommends:" packages.
  • apt-get remove ubuntu-restricted-extras ubuntu-restricted-addons
  • apt-get remove for all the recommended packages
  • apt-get autoremove to get rid of the installed dependencies for the recommended packages.

Then if you want you can do a clean reinstall:

  • apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras to get everything back

Note that apt-get install --reinstall for all of the recommended packages would not be thorough enough as it would not get rid of the installed dependencies for the recommended packages.

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The following answer is irrespective of the problem you faced with Google Chrome. It's an answer to the title's question.

The ubuntu-restricted-extras package, is a dummy package that installs other packages and libraries as well.

Here is an example list

cabextract flashplugin-installer freepats gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3 gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse
  gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer1.0-libav gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly liba52-0.7.4 libass4 libavcodec-extra-53 libavformat53 libavutil-extra-51
  libcdaudio1 libdc1394-22 libdca0 libdirac-encoder0 libdirectfb-1.2-9 libdvdnav4 libdvdread4 libenca0 libfaac0 libfaad2 libfftw3-3 libfftw3-double3 libflite1 libgme0 libgsm1
  libgstreamer-plugins-bad0.10-0 libgstreamer-plugins-bad1.0-0 libkate1 libmad0 libmimic0 libmjpegutils-2.0-0 libmms0 libmodplug1 libmp3lame0 libmpcdec6 libmpeg2-4
  libmpeg2encpp-2.0-0 libmpg123-0 libmplex2-2.0-0 libnspr4-0d libnss3-1d libofa0 liboil0.3 libopenal-data libopenal1 libopencore-amrnb0 libopencore-amrwb0 libopenjpeg2 libopus0
  libpostproc52 libschroedinger-1.0-0 libsidplay1 libslv2-9 libsoundtouch0 libspandsp2 libswscale2 libts-0.0-0 libtwolame0 libva1 libvo-aacenc0 libvo-amrwbenc0
  libwildmidi-config libwildmidi1 libx264-123 libxvidcore4 libzbar0 libzvbi-common libzvbi0 tsconf ttf-mscorefonts-installer ubuntu-restricted-addons ubuntu-restricted-extras
  unrar

You can copy-paste the above code to a txt file and run

sudo apt-get remove $(cat somefile.txt) 

Be Aware that the package-libraries versions may vary. Above is from Ubuntu 13.10.

Also you can locate the command you gave "apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras" in apt history log files and see which packages this command had installed.

Try

cat /var/log/apt/history.log 

If the installation is recent it will be listed there, if is older, you can try other history logs as well. e.g. history.log.1.gz (you can list .gz files with zcat instead of cat)

0

@Mitch answer doesn't remove completely ubuntu-restricted-extras package (at least in Ubuntu 14.04). Certainly because ubuntu-restricted-extras has not much "depends" packages but "recommends" instead, that are installed automatically by default.

apt-cache depends ubuntu-restricted-extras
  Depends: ubuntu-restricted-addons
  Recommends: ttf-mscorefonts-installer
  Recommends: unrar
  Recommends: gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse
  Recommends: <libavcodec-extra-53>
  Conflicts: ubuntu-restricted-extras:i386

apt-cache depends ubuntu-restricted-addons
ubuntu-restricted-addons
  Recommends: gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly
  Recommends: gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly
  Recommends: flashplugin-installer
    flashplugin-installer:i386
  Recommends: gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad
  Recommends: gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad
  Recommends: gstreamer1.0-libav
  Recommends: gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
  Recommends: gstreamer1.0-fluendo-mp3
  Recommends: chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra
  Recommends: oxideqt-codecs-extra
  Conflicts: ubuntu-restricted-addons:i386

Unfortunately apt-get purge package and apt-get autoremove --purge don't remove "recommends" packages (Remove recommended packages) even after you uninstall ubuntu-restricted-extras and ubuntu-restricted-addons, so you have to uninstall manually what you don't need (I had ttf-mscorefonts-installer, unrar and flashplugin-installer already installed):

sudo apt-get purge ubuntu-restricted-extras ubuntu-restricted-addons gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse libavcodec-extra-53 gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer1.0-libav gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3 gstreamer1.0-fluendo-mp3 oxideqt-codecs-extra

On my computer, removing chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra wants to uninstall chromium, so I had to install chromium-codecs-ffmpeg and it will uninstall chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra:

sudo apt-get install chromium-codecs-ffmpeg

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