Removing aplications?

[mariane_08]

This question stems from a conversation I got into last night with a non Linux user. We were talking about how when you install some application in windows and then remove it it leaves bit of files here, there and everywhere. I explained how things were somewhat different in Linux, specifically Ubuntu.

But is it? i mean since I've used Ubuntu I've installed some things, mainly via the Software center or through Synaptic and occasionally the CLI. Last week was a good example when I wanted to try a particular type of application. I went to Software Centre installed about four different ones, tried them to see which I liked best and then removed the others. I felt much more confident doing this i Ubuntu than I ever did in Windows. But still is it leaving bits of junk on my system that will slow things down eventually?

Mariane

[hazel]

It won't leave any bits of that package. But it will leave other packages that were installed automatically because your package was dependent on them. There should be a way of identifying such "orphan" packages so that you can remove them by hand. In Debian you would use the deborphan command but I don't know if that exists on Ubuntu.

[coopstah13]

thats also not quite true, it will leave configuration files for that package, unless you specify purge option

it shouldn't slow anything down, just takes up disk space

[mariane_08]

thats also not quite true, it will leave configuration files for that package, unless you specify purge option

it shouldn't slow anything down, just takes up disk space

Yes I assumed it might leave some other dependencies, which may at some point be required by something else.

But... how do I --safely-- execute the purge option??

[coopstah13]

if the package isn't installed, no need for config files, unless you want to keep them for some other time you install the package

if you run apt-get on command line just add --purge, there is a purge option in synaptic when you right click

as far as safety goes, it should be fine, all it does is remove the package like normal, but removes config files as well, it shouldn't cause issues

[reed9]

But even with purge, it doesn't remove configuration files in your home directory. It just removes the system wide config files.