737

I've searched the net for such information and found different command lines, like these ones:

sudo apt-get remove application
sudo apt-get remove application*

sudo apt-get remove --purge application
sudo apt-get remove --purge application*

sudo apt-get purge application
sudo apt-get purge application*

So, what is the correct way? Is it necessary to use that "*"?

After that, I also found these commands:

sudo updatedb
sudo locate application
sudo rm -rf (file/folder name)
6
  • 2
    Some of your questions might be answered in this post: askubuntu.com/questions/1143/how-can-i-uninstall-software Sep 14, 2012 at 22:03
  • 8
    application* can on occasion give unexpected results - for example, if you have a file in the current directory named application_information, the shell would expand it before it's passed to apt-get. If this is happening and you do want the literal asterisk, you can use application\* or 'application*'
    – Izkata
    Sep 15, 2012 at 3:27
  • 6
    application* is even more dangerous where there are no files in the current directory: apt-get uses regular expressions, no glob patterns. People have almost wiped the whole system trying to remove wine*. Nov 23, 2013 at 9:40
  • 7
    Can you accept an answer? To be grateful to people who answered you.
    – m-ric
    Dec 1, 2016 at 21:04
  • 3
    Neither application* nor application\* is safe! Quoting * with \ or ' ' only increases the risk, ensuring * is passed as-is to apt-get (though it usually is anyway!), causes apt-get to interpret the argument as a regex. In a regex * means "zero or more of the preceding character." A common form of the mistake is to uninstall wine*, removing all packages with win (not wine, win) anywhere in their names and all packages depending on any of them. See this explanation and possible fixes. @Izkata Aug 23, 2017 at 19:41

9 Answers 9

902
  • apt-get remove packagename

    will remove the binaries, but not the configuration or data files of the package packagename. It will also leave dependencies installed with it on installation time untouched.

  • apt-get purge packagename or apt-get remove --purge packagename

    will remove about everything regarding the package packagename, but not the dependencies installed with it on installation. Both commands are equivalent.

    Particularly useful when you want to 'start all over' with an application because you messed up the configuration. However, it does not remove configuration or data files residing in users home directories, usually in hidden folders there. There is no easy way to get those removed as well.

  • apt-get autoremove

    removes orphaned packages, i.e. installed packages that used to be installed as an dependency, but aren't any longer. Use this after removing a package which had installed dependencies you're no longer interested in.

  • aptitude remove packagename or aptitude purge packagename (likewise)

    will also attempt to remove other packages which were required by packagename on but are not required by any remaining packages. Note that aptitude only remembers dependency information for packages that it has installed.

And many more exist. Lower-level dpkg-commands can be used (advanced), or GUI tools like Muon, Synaptic, Software Center, etc. There's no single 'correct way' of removing applications or performing other tasks interacting with your package management.

The list you found are just examples. Make sure you understand the meanings and try out what it wants to do before accepting the action (you need to press Y before it actually performs the actions as proposed).

The asterisk version in the question is probably wrong; apt-get accepts a regular expression and not a glob pattern as the shell. So what happens with

sudo apt-get remove application*

is the following:

  1. The shell tries to expand application* looking at the files in the current directory. If (as is normally the case) it finds nothing, it returns the glob pattern unaltered (supposing bash with default behavior here --- zsh will error out).

  2. apt-get will remove the packages whose name contains a string that satisfies the regular expression application*, that is, applicatio followed by an arbitrary number of n: applicatio, application, applicationn, libapplicatio, etc.

  3. To see how this can be dangerous, try (without root for double safety) apt-get -s remove "wine*" (-s will simulate the thing instead of doing it) --- it will say is going to remove all packages that has "win" in their name and the dependant, almost the entire system...

Probably, the command that was meant is really

 sudo apt-get remove "^application.*"

(note the quotes and the dot) which will remove all packages whose name starts with application.

These commands,

sudo updatedb                  # <-- updates the locate database (index). harmless
sudo locate application        # <-- locates the file 'application'. harmless
sudo rm -rf (file/folder name) # <-- removes files/dirs recursively. dangerous.

are completely outside the scope of the package management. Do not remove files belonging to packages without using the package manager! It will get confused and is the wrong way to do things.

If you don't know to which package a file belongs, try this:

dpkg -S /path/to/file
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  • 13
    The --purge option is also handy when trying to fully remove any remaining dependencies including their config files: apt-get-autoremove --purge It's also important to note that configuration files in your home directory are unaffected by the --purge option. These you will have to remove manually. Sep 14, 2012 at 22:16
  • 2
    There was an error here: apt-get accepts RE, not globs; so apt-get remove pack* will remove all packages that starts with pac followed by zero or more k... which is normally unexpected. I edited the anser. See also askubuntu.com/questions/210976/…
    – Rmano
    Oct 9, 2014 at 11:12
  • 1
    I think this answer is no longer accurate. Either apt remove -s texlive* or its apt-get counterpart return lines such as Note, selecting 'texlive-font-utils' for glob 'texlive*' (implying that they do indeed accept globs), followed by the usual Package 'texlive-common' is not installed, so not removed, and finally Remv lines, such as Remv texlive-font-utils [2015.20160320-1] [...]. Jun 12, 2017 at 15:34
  • @JonathanY. You would also select not-installed packages. Anyway, could you please ask a NEW question and elaborate a bit more in detail what your situation is in the question. I would be happy to look at it :)
    – gertvdijk
    Jun 13, 2017 at 20:56
  • 2
    I'm not asking a new question. I'm pointing at a possible change since this answer was made that makes some of the details incorrect. To wit, it would seem that apt-get remove packa* does indeed take the glob packa* instead of looking at it as regex: it matches package but not pack. Jun 13, 2017 at 21:18
154

For Ubuntu 12.04 and maybe higher, the correct method is:

sudo apt-get --purge autoremove packagename

As detailed here.

Do not use packagename* as that can delete unintended packages and cause more problems than it solves. Or if you must, at least run it with a -s, --simulate, --dry-run flag first to see exactly what it will do without doing it.

1
  • 17
    this is the correct answer, short and concise :
    – Anwar
    Aug 23, 2016 at 17:53
33

You can use this command:

sudo apt-get purge --auto-remove packagename

It will purge required packages along with dependencies that are installed with those packages. The --auto-remove option (being an alias of autoremove) works similar to sudo apt-get autoremove. By using this command we can run a single command:

sudo apt-get purge --auto-remove packagename

Instead of:

sudo apt-get purge packagename
sudo apt-get autoremove
2
  • 2
    Though you're correct, but one can also use sudo apt-get --purge autoremove packagename. Same 1 command here
    – Anwar
    Aug 23, 2016 at 18:03
  • Can the complete command also be written as apt-get autoremove --purge instead of apt-get purge --auto-remove ?
    – felwithe
    Nov 7, 2016 at 18:41
7

You can safely use sudo apt-get remove --purge application or sudo apt-get remove applications 99% of the time. When you use the purge flag, it simply removes all config files too. Which may or may not be what you want, depending on if you want to reinstall said application. The application* will match all applications that start with application, which are usually plugins, additional features, etc of the main application you are removing. i.e.

sudo apt-get remove gedit*

would remove gedit, gedit-plugins and gedit-common. Typically it is not necessary to do this, because most plugins/associated programs are dependent on the main application, and will automatically be removed (or marked for removal) when you uninstall the main application.

Your last command is just to remove leftovers from applications that are known to have messy uninstallers, and it is just removing any remnants of the application.

5

I found this command in internet.

dpkg --purge --force-depends application

http://www.debian-administration.org/article/Reinstalling_packages_to_fix_problems.

5

I got some error messages removing a package, the only way I found that worked was this:

mv /var/lib/dpkg/info/package.* /tmp/
dpkg --remove --force-remove-reinstreq package

I found that although using only

dpkg --remove --force-remove-reinstreq package

does not remove the package it shows me the correct path to the file to move with:

mv /var/lib/dpkg/info/package.* /tmp/

Substitute package with your application name. Use sudo in Ubuntu, become root in Debian.

3

I just wanted to clarify one thing that seems to be a source of confusion on here. The dpkg utility does not know about or track packages dependencies in relation to one another, which was a big reason that apt was developed I believe. You can read about it in section 8.6 on this page The Debian GNU/Linux FAQ - The Debian package management tools

  • With apt: If I wanted to purge package A, and it has a dependency called package B, and package B had no other dependent packages, then package A and B will be purged. If package B DID have other dependent packages, then only package A will be purged.

  • With dpkg: What dependency? You just told me to purge the damn
    package so that's what I did! Poor planning on your part does not
    constitute an emergency on my part.

With that said, here are two one-liners which can be used for each purge methods:

dpkg --list |grep "^rc" | cut -d " " -f 3 | xargs sudo dpkg --dry-run --purge

apt-get autoremove -y; apt-get --dry-run purge -y $(dpkg --list |grep '^rc' |awk '{print $2}')

Remove the --dry-run to perform the actual purge operation instead of reporting what actions it would have taken.

1
  • This was actually what I was looking for. I had an issue where apt purge and autoremove didn't remove a package dependancy because it was suggested by another installed package. I was super lit about this because all the top answers always suggest purging followed by autoremove is enough. It isn't always. Thank you my dude. You would probably get more upvotes if you explained the commands in more detail.
    – Peter
    Jan 17, 2021 at 16:41
2

It depends on the application you want to remove. Always be sure to check its dependencies before issuing the yes command. When you remove something by command line, it will sometimes show a handful of libraries that are no longer needed. These can be removed with apt-get autoremove.

Beware that by using commands such as sudo apt-get remove --purge applicationname may remove some dependencies that are needed by other applications and, as such, might break your system.

If you want to do it in the safer way, you can always remove it using just the software center or apt-get remove applicationname. If the dependencies aren't needed anymore, issue apt-get autoremove later.

1
  • I think the whole Debian package system was designed specifically to not remove a package if there are other packages dependent on it. You may be (helpfully) asked if you want to remove all the dependent packages too, and that is where you should actually read the list of package about to be removed, which is I think what you're trying to say.
    – Xen2050
    Feb 25, 2015 at 11:07
1

To remove everything regarding the package package name like data and configuration, but not the dependencies installed with it on installation use:

apt-get remove --purge packagename

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