How to Uninstall Ubuntu Software

Are you running out of hard drive space? If you are using the Ubuntu operating system, you may be wondering how you can uninstall outdated, useless programs. There are several ways to uninstall programs, including graphical and command-line methods. Use this guide to uninstall programs using the method that works best for you.

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Method 1

Uninstall using Synaptic Package Manager

1 Open the package manager. Ubuntu comes with a GUI (Graphical User Interface) package manager that allows you to uninstall programs in a visual window. This tool is very useful if you are not used to using the command line. Click System and select Administration. In the Administration menu, select Synaptic Package Manager. Some newer versions of Ubuntu do not have Synaptic pre-installed. To install it, open a terminal and type: sudo apt-get install synaptic If you use Unity, open the dashboard and search for “Synaptic”

2 Find the program you want to uninstall. In the left pane, you can sort the list of programs by category. Installed programs (packages) will be listed in the pane above Synaptic. Programs are often displayed by their abbreviated names. For example, Media Player is often displayed as “mplayer”. If you cannot determine by the program’s abbreviated name whether it is the program you need to remove, search for information online before removing it.

3 Right-click on the package you need assistance with. Select Mark for removal from the menu. You can choose to repeat this operation for multiple packages that need to be uninstalled. You can also choose to mark for complete removal so that configuration and program files can be deleted.

4 Click the Apply button. Once you have marked all the packages you want to uninstall, click the Apply button at the top of the window. The package manager will prompt you to confirm the changes. Click Apply again to accept the changes and uninstall the program.

Method 2

Uninstall using the software center

1 Open Software Center. Software Center is a GUI package manager that can install and uninstall Linux software. On older versions of Ubuntu, the Software Center was inside the Applications menu. In more recent versions, you can find the Software Center in Launcher, or search for “software” in the Dash search bar.

2 Open the installed software. In the left pane, click the Installed Software link. This will open a list of all software installed on your system.

3 Uninstall the program. Highlight the program you want to uninstall and click the Remove button on the toolbar. You may be asked to enter an administrator password. After entering the password, the program will be automatically removed. You can select multiple programs to add them to the removal queue, then click the Remove button. When the first program finishes uninstalling, the next program in the queue will be uninstalled.

Method 3

Uninstall using terminal

1 Open a terminal. You will use the “apt-get” command, which is a generic command for managing installed programs. You may need to enter an administrator password when uninstalling a program. When you enter the password, the password will not be displayed. Press Enter when you are done typing.

2 Browse for installed programs. To see a list of installed packages, enter the following command. Note the name of the package you wish to uninstall. dpkg –list

3 Uninstall the program and all configuration files. Enter the following command in a terminal, substituting the program you wish to remove completely: sudo apt-get –purge remove

4 Uninstall programs only. If you remove the program but keep the configuration file, enter the following command: sudo apt-get remove

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