sudo apt install works, but sudo apt-get purge --autoremove leaving a lot of junk on my system. Can't remove them

ubudoge

6/9/24, 12:44 PM

I just installed neofetch using sudo apt install neofetch. When I went to uninstall it with sudo apt-get purge --autoremove, I noticed there were many packages that it never removed along with a bunch of fonts. I had to go back and autoremove each package it left behind, freeing up 10MB of space, it still can't remove the font folders because (folder not empty). Am I using these commands wrong or is it meant to work this way?

dpkg: warning: while removing fonts-urw-base35, directory '/usr/share/fonts/type1/urw-base35' not empty so not remove
dpkg: warning: while removing fonts-urw-base35, directory '/usr/share/fonts/opentype/urw-base35' not empty so not rem
Purging configuration files for poppler-data (0.4.11-1) ...
dpkg: warning: while removing poppler-data, directory '/usr/share/poppler/cMap/Adobe-Korea1' not empty so not removed
dpkg: warning: while removing poppler-data, directory '/usr/share/poppler/cMap/Adobe-Japan2' not empty so not removed
dpkg: warning: while removing poppler-data, directory '/usr/share/poppler/cMap/Adobe-Japan1' not empty so not removed
dpkg: warning: while removing poppler-data, directory '/usr/share/poppler/cMap/Adobe-GB1' not empty so not removed
dpkg: warning: while removing poppler-data, directory '/usr/share/poppler/cMap/Adobe-CNS1' not empty so not removed
dpkg: warning: while removing poppler-data, directory '/usr/share/fonts/cmap' not empty so not removed
dpkg: warning: while removing poppler-data, directory '/usr/share/fonts/cMap' not empty so not removed
Purging configuration files for gsfonts (1:8.11+urwcyr1.0.7~pre44-4.5) ...
dpkg: warning: while removing gsfonts, directory '/usr/share/fonts/type1/gsfonts' not empty so not removed
dpkg: warning: while removing fonts-noto-mono, directory '/usr/share/fonts/truetype/noto' not empty so not removed
Purging configuration files for fonts-droid-fallback (1:6.0.1r16-1.1build1) ...
dpkg: warning: while removing fonts-droid-fallback, directory '/usr/share/fonts/truetype/droid' not empty so not removed

0 + 2

package-management

uninstall

guiverc

6/9/24, 12:56 PM

You show a command that will install `neofetch`, but your subsequent command that contained `purge` did **not** provide any package to remove thus only acted on prior package(s) & not `neofetch`.

zwets

6/9/24, 8:36 PM

The "not empty so not removed" messages are about font directories where fontconfig has dropped `.uuid` files. When the package uninstalls, APT can't remove these directories, not even when you `--purge`, because it finds these stray files. The messages (and remnant directories) are mostly harmless - albeit an ugly wart on Ubuntu's neat package management.

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: sudo apt install works, but sudo apt-get purge --autoremove leaving a lot of junk on my system. Can't remove them

Post an answer

Most people don’t grasp that asking a lot of questions unlocks learning and improves interpersonal bonding. In Alison’s studies, for example, though people could accurately recall how many questions had been asked in their conversations, they didn’t intuit the link between questions and liking. Across four studies, in which participants were engaged in conversations themselves or read transcripts of others’ conversations, people tended not to realize that question asking would influence—or had influenced—the level of amity between the conversationalists.