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I upgraded to 20.04 from 19.10 a few weeks ago. Everything has been working fine except for a few teething problems I easily sorted out. I regularly update my system with sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade and since the last update some basic Gnome apps have been removed. For instance yesterday the gnome.logs app had gone and when a called it from the command line I got this message:

$ gnome-logs

Der Befehl 'gnome-logs' wurde nicht gefunden, kann aber installiert werden mit:

sudo snap install gnome-logs # version 3.34.0,  or sudo apt install gnome-logs # version 3.34.0-1ubuntu1

(The German reads "The command 'gnome-logs' was not found but can be installed with: .......)

I reinstalled it with sudo apt-get install gnome-logs and the version 3.34.0 was installed and works as it did previously.

Then today I needed to use the calculator, but that too had disappeared! And when I called it from the command line I got the same message to (re-)install with snap or apt.

Why are these often used apps being removed? Is it someone trying to get me to switch to using snap rather than apt or reminding me that the packages are available in snap?

Whatever the reason, trying to open often used apps only to find you have to re-install them is frustrating and subtracts from the pleasure of using Ubuntu.

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  • Did you upgrade using a new image or did you upgrade using something like sudo do-release-upgrade
    – mchid
    Jun 7, 2020 at 7:37
  • I upgraded from the pop-up that appears when a new version is available. I have upgraded this laptop the same way since 18.04. Both gnome-logs and and gnome-calculator have been working since the upgrade, they only disappeared in the last few days, I use both almost daily so I would have noticed if they had gone after the upgrade.
    – SteveInBavaria
    Jun 7, 2020 at 7:47

1 Answer 1

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There is fundamental difference between the ways the mentioned applications are shipped with Ubuntu 19.10 and 20.04. Those are apps are pre-installed as snap packages in Ubuntu 19.10 whereas in Ubuntu 20.04, they're shipped via a more traditional way (installed with apt).

It seems during the upgrade process, the updater couldn't deal with the change and thus simply removed the snap ones but didn't install the replacements via apt. It's very unlikely there is a conspiracy going on. To be safe, consider reinstalling the ubuntu-desktop meta-package once again.

P.S. GNOME Characters also falls under this category, you should see the same behaviour with that application too.

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  • Sorry but that is not possible as I have been using both gnome-calculator and gnome-logs daily since I upgrade to 20.04 over two weeks ago.
    – SteveInBavaria
    Jun 7, 2020 at 7:54
  • Then more details are required, e.g. by which method they were installed before vanishing, what kind of changes you made to your system before they vanished and what commands you ran (simply running sudo apt update only won't cause this), how your sources look like now etc. Anyway, (re-)install the ubuntu-desktop meta-package (and don't remove any of its dependency) to prevent them from vanishing.
    – pomsky
    Jun 7, 2020 at 7:57
  • They were installed when I installed 18.04 onto my laptop two years ago. I have never conciously installed anything with snap, ever, I always use either apt-get install or Synaptic. I pointed out in the OP that all I had done to the system was to regularty run 'sudo apt-update'. I am wary about messing with a working deasktop when something, in my opinion, is not right with the desktop package at the moment. I will live with the inconvenience of re-installing basic apps if I find them gone. I just thought people should be aware of the problem I encountered.
    – SteveInBavaria
    Jun 7, 2020 at 8:04
  • Even on 18.04 they're pre-installed as snap packages. Also sudo apt-update is not a valid command. I presume you meant sudo apt update. But just this command itself doesn't install/remove/upgrade packages; it only downloads package information from all configured apt sources.
    – pomsky
    Jun 7, 2020 at 8:11
  • Actually I use a alias to update which contains 'sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade'.
    – SteveInBavaria
    Jun 7, 2020 at 8:41

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