I've installed something via Synaptic Package Manager and would like to uninstall it via Synaptic Package Manager. That's it. But there is no simple "uinstall" option. It's "mark for removal" or "mark for complete removal." What do those two options actually mean? ("removal" is so vague to me) And how would I uninstall the program (and it's dependencies) and not knock it out of the Synaptic Package Manager should I want to install it at some later date? Thank you.

Removal is standard uninstallation. Complete removal means removing user configuration files as well, the same as "apt-get purge". Dependencies won't be automatically removed, since other packages may also depend on them.

You can't "knock it out of Synaptic". Synaptic knows about every package in the repositories, whether they've ever been installed or uninstalled on your system.

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Synaptic is simply a graphical front-end for "apt" and you can read all about it with "man apt" or "man apt-get".

Basically you are talking about the difference between "apt-get remove" and "apt-get purge".

If you think you might reinstall the application someday, then "apt-get remove" is the safe option (otherwise you lose your config files).

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That was very helpful. Thank you. For me I would almost certainly be using "remove" but what would be an instance where I wanted to use "remove completely"?

Thanks very much. A follow-up queston. So if I'm "removing" via Synaptic Package Manager some dependencies may be left on the computer (as the previous poster pointed out). So say I download LibreOffice (the meta package). Then I "remove" it. Let's say, just for example's sake, some dependencies are left on the computer. Well, what happens if I repeat that same process but this time from the Ubuntu Software Center? Are the exact same dependencies left on the computer?

And is the "remove" button on Ubuntu Software Center the equivalent of "remove" on Synaptic Package Manager?

Lastly, it seems like a newbie like me should stick to the Ubuntu Software Center, however (I did download LibreOffice) I noticed in downloading Libre Office in the Synpatic Package Center that it gave me the option of looking at various things I could add to LibreOffice (I chose the thesaurus). I know there are some choices to add on in the Ubuntu Software Center as well. Are the choices the exact same? I guess what I'm getting at is, Are there any huge advantages to using the Ubuntu Software Center or the Synaptic Package Manager, or perhaps the terminal downloading is bettter than either?

I don't know much about Ubuntu Software Center but I would assume it is garbage like most Canonical projects.