How To Easily Uninstall Programs On Ubuntu With qUninstaller
Uninstalling programs on Ubuntu can be a bit of a pain. Dealing with the terminal is tricky if you’re a new user, and even the Ubuntu Software Center has its problems. Luckily, there’s an easier way to uninstall programs on Ubuntu; qUninstaller. It’s a lightweight GUI tool that makes uninstalling any program much easier to understand.
Note: using the qUninstaller app requires Python version 2.7+, and Ubuntu 16.04 or later.
Install qUninstaller
Getting qUninstaller on Ubuntu isn’t like installing other programs. You won’t find it in the Ubuntu Software Center, or the Ubuntu software sources at all. Instead, users looking to get the latest version of the qUninstaller program need to download a standalone Debian package file to use it.
Installing programs via a downloadable Deb package isn’t bad, though there is one thing to keep in mind: programs that you download from the internet don’t have a way to automatically update. If a new release of qUninstaller appears, you’ll likely need to install the new update manually.
To install qUninstaller, head over to the official download page on Source Forge. Click “Download” to get the latest release. After the package finishes downloading, open up a terminal and use the CD command to move the terminal to the ~/Downloads folder on your Ubuntu PC.
cd ~/Downloads
Once inside the Downloads folder, use the dpkg tool to install the package to the system.
sudo dpkg -i quninstaller_1.2_all.deb
Running the Dpkg tool to install qUninstaller won’t finish correctly, due to some missing dependencies. This doesn’t mean your Ubuntu installation is broken. All it means is that qUninstaller is having difficulty installing important program files manually. As a result, you’ll see an error saying that they “couldn’t be resolved”. This is easy to fix. Run install -f to correct and install any missing libraries and programs that the qUninstaller app needs to run on Ubuntu.
sudo apt install -f
Install Python-pip
After correcting qUninstaller’s dependencies, the program should install on Ubuntu nicely. However, it still won’t work correctly. For whatever reason, when using this app on Ubuntu, a Python library doesn’t install correctly. As a result, running “qUninstaller”, especially on Ubuntu 18.04 will result in the program refusing to run. This issue comes from the Debian package not installing Pyxdg during the setup process.
Not to worry! This is very easy to fix. Start off by installing python-pip. Installing python-pip will let you install important Python libraries, especially those critical to qUninstaller.
sudo apt install python-pip
Installing python-pip alone should be enough, as installing it also brings in some important Python files as well. If just installing python-pip isn’t enough to make the program run, you’ll also need to use Pip to get a missing library. The missing Python library is Pyxdg, and it is very important to qUninstaller. Luckily, you can install it on your system with Pip.
Keep in mind that because qUninstaller is installed on Ubuntu at the system level, the Pyxdg library needs to be as well. To get Pyxdg on Ubuntu, run the following command in a terminal window.
sudo python-pip install pyxdg
Getting Pyxdg fixes an issue that can sometimes come up when installing qUninstaller.
qUninstaller On Debian
Though this guide focuses on Ubuntu, Debian users can also use this program, as Ubuntu and Debian share the same base architecture. To install, head over to Source Forge and download the latest Deb. Then, open up a terminal and install it.
Note: qUninstaller will likely run on Debian 9 nicely. The same can’t be said for Debian Testing and Unstable. Use at your own risk!
cd ~/Downloads sudo dpkg -i quninstaller_1.2_all.deb sudo apt install -f
Like Ubuntu, you may need to install python-pip and pyxdg to make it run correctly:
sudo apt install python-pip sudo python-pip install pyxdg
Using qUninstaller
Now that qUninstaller has been installed, you can use it to uninstall programs on Ubuntu, or Debian. Open up the Gnome dash and search for “qUninstaller” to launch it. Once open, you’ll see a list of all installed programs on your Ubuntu PC. Scroll through it and look for the packages you’d like to remove. In the list, select a program to uninstall from Ubuntu. After selecting it, click the “uninstall” button to start the uninstallation process.
Using qUninstaller doesn’t need root access at startup. Instead, it only asks for a password when things are ready to remove. As you click the “uninstall” button, a pop-up appears that asks the current user for their password. Enter it, and give qUninstaller temporary system-level access.
After entering a password, the qUninstaller app will go through the process of uninstalling the program from your Ubuntu PC. When it’s complete, it’ll return back to the main selection window. To remove more programs, repeat the process above.
