[SOLVED] Remove Opera Browser on Ubuntu 11.10

jay_pablo_69 · 11-08-2011, 07:56 PM

Hi,
I uninstalled Opera browser from my system (Ubuntu 11.10) via Synaptic and deleted the '.opera' folder on 'Home' directory but it is still showing on applications installed. When I click on it, it launches the browser and recreates the '.opera' folder on 'Home' directory, but there is no such Opera file in any 'usr' sub-directory.
Pls how can I completely remove this browser from my system?
Thanks.

yancek · 11-08-2011, 08:04 PM

In Synaptic did you Mark for complete removal and click Apply and it still shows up?

jlinkels · 11-08-2011, 08:11 PM

They imitated Windows real good. If you remove a virus it also comes back

these are commands to get rid of Opera:

Code:

sudo apt-get remove opera

if that doesn't work:

Code:

dpkg -r opera

and if gawdforbid you installed it outside dpkg, apt or synaptic, find oper by

Code:

which opera

and delete it from that folder.

However, I don't see the need at all to remove Opera. If it doesn't run, it remains totally unnoticed. Ubuntu does not get slower with more applications installed. If you want to make a different browser default, there is an application in Ubuntu for managing alternatives and preferences, but I forgot its name.

jlinkels

jay_pablo_69 · 11-08-2011, 08:28 PM

Hi guys. Thanks for your prompt response.

I marked it for complete removal under Synaptic. It's now unmarked in Synaptic, which means 'not installed'.
I tried all those commands, but it is still there. Here are the results:

Quote:

abc123@abc123-ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get remove opera
[sudo] password for abc123:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Package opera is not installed, so not removed
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

abc123@abc123-ubuntu:~$ sudo dpkg -r opera
dpkg: warning: there is no installed package that matches opera

abc123@abc123-ubuntu:~$ which opera
abc123@abc123-ubuntu:~$

jlinkels · 11-08-2011, 08:49 PM

I am surprised Opera still runs as it is not in the path anymore. You checked that with which.

Use your menu editor to find out how opera is called, and delete it from there if that is worth it to you.

jlinkels

jay_pablo_69 · 11-08-2011, 09:02 PM

Thanks jlinkels!
That did it. I found out that it was installed (for some unknown reason) at '.local' under 'Home' directory.
Thanks a lot!

ruario · 11-12-2011, 12:48 PM

It was installed in .local because you installed it in individual user mode via one of the tar packages rather than a deb. To uninstall Opera when it is installed that way simply issue uninstall-opera in a terminal window.

ruario · 11-12-2011, 12:54 PM

Or if "~/.local/bin" is not in your path:

Code:

~/.local/bin/uninstall-opera

@jlinkels Opera does not need to be in your path to appear in your applications menu because the Opera desktop file specifies the full path to the startup script and Gnome/Unity's application menu reads "~/.local/share/applications" (where the desktop file is found) in addition to "/usr/share/applications" and "/usr/local/share/applications".

ruario · 11-12-2011, 01:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jlinkels

They imitated Windows real good.

I am guessing you are just joking around but I can't resist responding.

He selected to use a non-native package and after Opera was installed this way, instructions are printed on the screen about how to remove Opera should you wish to in the future.

jlinkels · 11-12-2011, 02:12 PM

Greetings to the country of Opera's origin!

I was targeting Ubuntu, not Opera, and yes I was joking.

I don't know it Opera makes references as how to uninstall it, but I don't blame Opera. Opera provides decent .deb packages, which are easily installed and uninstalled using dpkg or apt. Installing packages beyond the distro's package manager should be discouraged if you are running an apt or yum distro.

That could be the only improvement to Opera's installer: have it sense the package manager and warn accordingly.

At the moment I joked, I could not have dreamed that the OP installed Opera beyond the package manager, hence my comment.

jlinkels

ruario · 11-12-2011, 03:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jlinkels

Greetings to the country of Opera's origin!

I don't just live in country of Opera's origin, I work for Opera in the Linux/FreeBSD desktop team as part of the QA/testing team and I am the main tester responsible for ensuring that the packages are up to scratch. Hence why I am probably a bit over protective.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jlinkels

That could be the only improvement to Opera's installer: have it sense the package manager and warn accordingly.

Actually we did used to do exactly that and stopped because it actually seemed to cause more confusion/annoyance. Obviously the tar packages are primarily provided for distros that don't use an rpm or dpkg based package manager. However those same distros often have rpm and/or dpkg installed to assist repackaging binaries (Slackware includes rpm in the default install for this very reason). Those users seemed to find it off putting or even offensive that our "cross-distro" install script suggest that they use rpm (or deb) on a non-rpm/dpkg based distro.

Since these packages where primarily for exactly those users and we expected that most users of rpm and dpkg distros to realise that their respective packages were the best choice, we decided to just drop the warning.

Having said all that, the tar packages can be useful even if you are using an rpm or dpkg based distro as they have an option called suffix installing, which renames components of the package on install and sets Opera to use a unique (suffixed) profile. This can be handy if you want to test two versions of Opera side by side (e.g. the stable and the beta version) without file and profile/settings from one overwriting the other.

For more information see this blog post:
http://my.opera.com/ruario/blog/2011...ra-under-gnome

Quote:

Originally Posted by jlinkels

At the moment I joked, I could not have dreamed that the OP installed Opera beyond the package manager, hence my comment.

Yep, fair point!

ruario · 11-12-2011, 03:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jlinkels

I don't know it Opera makes references as how to uninstall it

Yep, It does.

ruario · 11-12-2011, 03:44 PM

This is how the warning used to look (taken from my Slackware system which happens to include dpkg)

ruario · 11-13-2011, 06:35 AM

@jay_pablo_69: Just a further thought. I am hoping that when you uninstalled the copy of Opera that was in '~/.local' you used the '~/.local/bin/uninstall-opera' command, which would have completely cleaned that installation. If you didn't do that and tried to clear it manually, you could use the following to remove any remenants that you might have left behind:

Code:

rm -f ~/.local/bin/opera ~/.local/bin/opera-widget-manager ~/.local/bin/uninstall-opera ~/.local/share/man/man1/opera.1.gz ~/.local/share/man/man1/opera-widget-manager.1.gz
rm -fr ~/.local/lib/opera ~/.local/share/doc/opera ~/.local/share/opera
find ~/.local/share -regextype posix-egrep -regex '.*opera-(browser|widget|widgets|widget-manager|widget-installer|unite-application|uniteapplication|extension)\.(png|svg|xml|desktop)$' -delete

Note: This assumes you didn't do any kind of suffix install. If you did use an install suffix, let me know what it was an I'll give you an adjusted set of commands.

jlinkels · 11-13-2011, 10:50 AM

That is why Windows is so much easier.

To install: download and say "yes" to the installer.
To uninstall: either run the uninstall widget or use Control Panel -> Add/Remove programs.

If the uninstaller just deletes the icons from the desktop and start menu, the average user is happy. Before he finds out there is 1 GB of trash left scattered over his hard disk it is time for the next re-install of Windows due to a registry grown to a size beyond processable (Windows is not scalable, in every aspect), or due to a virus which really messed up the installation.

In Dutch we have a saying, perhaps you can read it: Zalig zijn de eenvoudigen van geest. Literally translated that is "blessed are the simple minds". In other words: you are much happier if you are not aware of complications.

jlinkels