The Linux Apps universe is huge. There are a lot of free and open-source applications available. You, as a Linux user ends up installing a lot of package in your system. Many of the applications you may not need or use at all after some time.
These programs consume disk space. Some start background services. This could make your system slow. So, it is always a good practice to remove the software which you are not using. This helps to save space and also improves the performance of the system.
So, let’s get started and see how to remove programs from Ubuntu Linux operating system.
Uninstall Apps from Ubuntu Linux
There are multiple ways to install programs in Linux, similarly, there are many ways to uninstall programs as well. You can use either a graphical interface or a terminal. The graphical interface is quite easy but the terminal is fast and you get some additional options as well.
We are going to cover both methods below. It is your choice which one to use.
1. Using Ubuntu Software to remove apps
Go to Activities and open the Ubuntu Software. Search for the software you want to uninstall. Let’s take Transmission as an example here for demonstration.
Click on it. This opens a window with the package information.
Just click on the Remove button. This opens a confirmation window with Cancel and Remove button. Click Cancel button if you do not want to remove the program or else click Remove.
Uninstallation requires privilege access. Enter the password to continue.
As soon as you enter the password, the uninstallation process starts and completes within the seconds. When the process completes the Remove button caption changes to Install. That means the software is removed successfully.
This way you can search one by one for the installed programs that you want to uninstall. The process is quite simple and centralized.
2. Remove Programs from your Ubuntu System using the terminal
APT is the package manager for Ubuntu Linux Distro. You use apt install to install the software, so what is the command to uninstall?
Is it apt uninstall? No. It is wrong.
The command to remove a package in Ubuntu is apt remove.
So, open a terminal from the main menu or press the keys CTRL + ALT + T and run the below command to remove a package:
sudo apt remove [package]
Generally, the package and program names are the same, but that is not always true. For example, the package name for the Transmission program is not transmission. It is different.
You can find the exact package name using the command given below.
sudo apt list --installed | grep transmission
The package name for the transmission program is transmission-gtk. Now you can use the below command to remove the transmission program.
sudo apt remove transmission-gtk
You can also remove several programs in one single command. Just mention the package name after remove separated by space as shown below.
sudo apt remove [package1] [package2]
3. Uninstall programs and saving space with autoremove and purge
The terminal also gives us other benefits, for example, you can save space by eliminating unnecessary libraries and dependencies.
To do this, just execute this command:
sudo apt autoremove
This command and the previous one uninstall programs but do not remove the configuration of them on the system. That’s why you use the option --purge together with remove to uninstall the program and remove its settings.
sudo apt remove --purge [package]
The settings that are deleted are not those created in the home directory but in the system directories such as /etc/
By combining both commands we can save disk space. Also, as we can see, the terminal is very efficient and flexible to remove programs.
4. Remove Snap Package
Snap is another technology promoted by Canonical to install software on Ubuntu. Many of the applications are available as a deb or snap package e.g slack. There are chances that you are using the snap package of some of the applications in Ubuntu 20.04.
This is the command to uninstall the snap package,
sudo snap remove[package]
e.g you can use the below command to remove the slack snap package.
sudo snap remove slack slack removed
5. Remove flatpack application
Flatpak is another way which you can use to install software on Linux. You can uninstall the flatpak application using the command given below.
flatpak uninstall [Apps]
e. g remove flatpack gimp application
flatpak uninstall org.gimp.GIMP
Conclusion
Uninstalling Ubuntu programs is a process as basic as it is important. This way we can leave our system with only the programs we need. It also helps to keep our Ubuntu system safe and stable.
In this post, you have learned how to do it in two different ways, one that is through the Ubuntu Software that is more pleasant to beginners, but also from the terminal using APT.
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