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.
-
1That 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?– user25656Jul 29, 2013 at 12:26
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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.– MohamedJul 29, 2013 at 16:24
4 Answers
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.
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 packagesapt-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.
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)
@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