In mint 7

[madokie]

I have 9 updates that I don't want to run because they are for evolution and pidgin of which neither I have on this install as I don't or won't be using them so how do I remove these updates so I won't inadvertently let them update?

thanks for the help :-)

add: another question, this one about thunderbird. How do I remove the extra 3 lines where one can add more email addy's cause I won't be sending the same email or reply to more than one recipient ever?

[RoyGBiv]

1. Updates ...

If you're being offered an update for a package, then it is on your system somewhere even if you're not using it.

The easiest way to get rid of these cleanly is to use the command line package manager:

sudo apt-get purge evolution

sudo apt-get purge pidgin

More detailed explanation:

The command apt-get is the command line package manager. Synaptic is basically a GUI version of this, but using some of the functions is actually less straightforward in the GUI version. So, when you see references to such things in Ubuntu, you'll almost always see the apt-get command.

There are two options that allow you to uninstall programs. With apt-get the remove option will uninstall a program, e.g. evolution. The purge option both uninstalls and removes the package itself from your system, along with any configuration files not in your /home directory. I only use remove when I might want to reinstall the program sometime soon.

BTW, when using the command line, you can combine commands on a single line if you want, e.g.

sudo apt-get purge evolution && sudo apt-get purge pidgin

What this says, in plainer English is "As the superuser, purge the evolution package. If that is successful, also purge the pidgin package." The characters && in between commands means "complete the next command if the first command completes successfully."

As to the Thunderbird question, I have no idea. This would be something specific to Thunderbird dealing with its layout. It could probably be done via an extension of some sort or manually editing the chrome files, but I wouldn't know where to start with the latter.

[madokie]

4. Ok I've done both of those and with pidgin it said it was removing some things

don't remember what and with evolution it told me it is not installed on here as I'd already removed it, but the update for both of those is still in my update manager. Is there a way to remove them from there or do I just have to be careful to not update those when new other updates come?
Thanks for the help.

[RoyGBiv]

5. Hrrrmmm ...

Is it the mintUpdate program that's tell you this?

Try clicking the Refresh button. (In Synaptic this is Reload. From the CLI it's sudo apt-get update.) That should refresh the database of what's available compared to what you have an need. May take a minute or two for it to do its thing with that.

If it's still showing as an update you need after that, tell me exactly what it is that it says needs updating, and I'll see if I can figure out why.

If all else fails, you could just let it update. The most that should do is reinstall it. Then you could uninstall it again. That's not ideal, of course. The update shouldn't be available of the package isn't already on your system.

[madokie]

6. The updates are no longer showing

When I right click on the update icon and click on refresh nothing comes up anymore. It's showing the lock locked. Thanks for the help cause I would bet that running sudo apt-get purge evolution && sudo apt-get purge pidgin is what done it.

What I have loaded and am playing with and liking real well so far is mint 7 universal.

Last night I had to do some work in Autocad so I booted my xp and it seems so strange now and thats just after no longer than I've been using linux. Micro$hit is on its way out of my life. I downloaded and installed wine and for a minute there I thought I had autocad running with it but it didn't so I have some more tweaking to do there yet but I'll get there sooner or later.

This learning linux is the most fun I've had with my clothes on in a while :-)

As soon as I get a little more comfortable with linux I'm going to upgrade the kid's laptop from vista:puke: to one of the linux distro's. It'll be either ubuntu or mint as they seem to be the better of the ones I've checked out and I've checked out a couple hands full of different ones these last few months.


Add: Now those updates are back

[RoyGBiv]

7. They're back?

That's a head-scratcher right there. I've not experienced this before.

Having gone through what seems logical, I can only suggest at this point that you just let it install. Then run

sudo apt-get autoremove

to get rid of anything on your system that doesn't need to be there.

On another note, I'm glad you're finding the process interesting. It is a learning experience.

I should share some e-mails I sent to my Linux mentor when I first started using it. I found new ways of expressing profanity. My only real problem was my graphics card and mouse ... and they drove me NUTS. Now, I could go back and do all that again quickly and easily, but at the time I was so totally lost I didn't think I'd ever find my mind again.

And really what it boils down to is learning a new way of doing things and adapting to a new culture 'cause it *is* different.

[madokie]

8. Without your help I'd still be on windows

The more I learn on this the better I'm liking linux. I just haven't completely decided on which version to settle in with. One thing about it with ubuntu and mint what works in one pretty much works in the other, so far that is.

Is there any need for Ccleaner type programs or registry cleaners or defragmenters with linux? I sure want to run all three but have no idea if its needed or if there is even the equivalent of them in linux

[RoyGBiv]

9. You don't need them ...

A) There is no registry.

The only thing remotely resembling this is the APT database that keeps track of programs and dependencies. This pretty much takes care of itself. The commands:

apt-get autoremove

and

apt-get clean

take care of the other parts of it that aren't automated.

B (1) Defragmenters aren't necessary either. Your disc is, for all intents and purposes, always defragmented because of the way the various disc formats deal with information.

I'm going to invoke my OpenSource heart here and not reinvent the wheel. This guy, whom I consider to be a SuperGuru, largely because he's able to communicate complex ideas in very clear ways, explains why better than I could.

http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/index.php/2006/08/17/why_doesn_t_linux_need_defragmenting

Also, even though some degree of fragmentation may occur, it doesn't matter in most cases:

http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/index.php/2008/11/13/fighting-fragmentation-on-linux

The moral of the latter story is that Unix, Linux, and OpenBSD (and by extention Macs) approach disc management in an entirely different way than Windows that doesn't require a lot of manual maintenance.

B (2) Most distros put into their boot sequence a check dealing with file system integrity. You'll notice this clearly if you just cut power to the machine to shut it down rather than go through the logout sequence. One of the first things that happens when you start up again will be a filesystem integrity check. It will NOT be clean, and it will fix itself.

Also, the check includes a timing check. If the disc has gone a number of days (and I forget what Ubuntu/Mint sets this as) without having its filesystem integrity checked, one will be done automatically prior to boot. You'll notice this at the time as the system taking a LONG TIME to boot, but don't worry about it, it's normal, and it takes care of a lot of the issues that arise with hard discs.

C) You may not be aware of this yet, but you have what are called cron jobs running in the background that are set by the distro developers who put them there to run at periodic intervals and clean up a lot of stuff. Where you'll get clutter in a Linux system is with the logs and files in /tmp. Several cron jobs are set by default to archive stuff on the /var/log directory and store it in a tarball (an archive made with the archiving program tar, sorta like zip or rar).

[RoyGBiv]

2. Some screenshots ...

The following shows removing pidgin. Note the first command 'sudo dpkg -l|grep pidgin



I did this just to make sure pidgin was installed, and it shows me everything that was installed with the string "pidgin" in it. When you install something in Linux, a package manager will install all the packages that program depends on to run as well, e.g. pidgin also needs pidgin-data. Now, that's not all it needs, as you can see from the line that starts "The following packages were also installed and are no longer required" after I've started the purge process. Just uninstalling pidgin doesn't get rid of these, so your update manager will find updates for all these other packages as well. This is why a lot of people prefer to use the CLI. It's simple to get rid of all that fairly quickly.

The apt-get program has another option called autoremove. Here it is in action:



The autoremove option doesn't need you to tell it which packages to remove. It simply consults your system's dependency requirements and marks for deleting all the packages required by other programs that are no longer needed. In other words, if I'd uninstalled, say, a dozen programs in the last few days, I could run:

sudo apt-get autoremove

and it would get rid of all that extraneous stuff I no longer need. And it does it quickly.

[ConsAreLiars]

3. Regarding Thunderbird

It is the same in the Windoze version and I've never noticed anything in the configuration options that make those extra fields optional. However, with Linux, you are a member of a community with a high percentage of altruistic geeks using software (like Thunderbird) that is free for any one of them to tweak. As you become more familiar with the layout of the land and the resources within, I am sure there could find forums where you could simply ask if anyone there could do that "fix" and several people would rush to be the first to post a tweaked version for you to use for as long as you didn't upgrade to next official upgrade.

In the meantime, it's just a feature that makes it easier to use some users and is useless to others, as is found in all programs.