What's the best (and safest) way to get rid of improperly installed programs?
 

I attempted to install an older version of LibreOffice and ended up making a mess of things. It looked like the LO was installed. It was in the Applications Menu, but it wouldn't launch. So you guys here helped me check it out in the terminal and turns out the LO is not installed.

Same goes for the Sigil (the other improperly installed program I want to get rid of).

And I've decided to get different versions of both programs so whatever is in there needs to go before I install the new versions.

So what's the best way of getting rid of what's in there? I've got Synaptic Package Manager and I can see that a lot of the squares are filled in with green for the Sigil and LO that was attempted to be installed. I could just check mark all those spaces with "Mark for complete removal." Or is there a better way?

I don't expect anybody to read beyond this but if the following terminal stuff is a clue as to the LO installation I'll include it. Here goes:

So you installed Libre Office from some deb download you found on the internet?
If you had installed from the repository, the right version would have been loaded.
The repository has been checked to ensure that incompatible old & new software isn't loaded.

is the cause of the problem.

I would If synaptic highlights any packages for just simple removal, I would chase them down and mark them for complete removal.

Same for Sigil.

But just remove LO & Sigil - nothing else.

Assuming this works, try installing the current version of LO & Sigil from the repositories, not your DEB directory.

Finally, delete relevant files from that DEB directory.
It should occur only very rarely that you need to install a .deb file.

Thanks Jeremy. I got the deb folder from my Downloads directory. I had previously used it to install LO on my other two computers. For whatever reason it installed properly on them. I assumed it would on this one as well.


I wanted that specific version of LO to stay consistent between computers.

Okay. But just to be on the safe side (see screenshot 022). Those green boxes mean it's installed. Then when I hover the cursor over them I get the six choices. So is that 'synaptic highlighting the packages for simple removal'?

Sigil in not in the repositories (if that's what's in the Ubuntu Software Center). Some friends are going to help me install that.

Question: I wasn't sure what you meant by deleting the relevant files from that DEB directory. (Remember I'm a newbie.) As far as I know all I have is a DEB folder sitting on my Desktop.

However, I have noticed something now. In one of the other threads I posted here (about installing LO) someone said, 'Install the first deb file in the deb folder and all the deb files will be installed.' Well, I did (w/the Gdebi installer) and it looked like just the one deb file installed.

But I decided (just now) to check (in the Synaptic Package Manager) to see if that first deb file is installed and there is a ton of deb files that have been installed. I'm putting a screen shot of most of the deb files in the deb folder (023).

And then a screenshot of most of the similar files that show up as installed in Synaptic (022).

There does not seem to be an exact correlation between the two but it's pretty close. Should I be deleting all those deb files?

To remove the maximum references to a package, take the last Synaptic optionThis may cause Synaptic to ask if it can mark other packages for removal - if you are happy about this, accept this and then change the removal option to "complete removal".

I've included a screen shot of what my Synaptic shows:-
Attachment 18076

I've highlighted a couple of packages which are not Libre Office packages and shouldn't be touched.

I assume that DEB directory has got your downloaded .deb files in it?
If so do you have a use for the files in it?

Thanks Jeremy. I did just what you said. Worked great. Thanks. Then I installed Libre Office from USC and I got Sigil too. I'm a happy camper.

I don't even know that I have a Deb directory. Unless by the directory you mean the Deb folder I have on my Desktop.

One thing, all those libobasic files (I put in the screenshot in a previous post) were gone after I did the LO install. I'm figuring the download got rid of them.

I don't know. I'll be interested to see what you think, but I think I'm in pretty good shape.

One thing I might do is download the same version of LO (from the USC) on my other computer so I have the same versions. Then put that same version on my laptop.

I don't know though, I might not. A lot of people have told me the LO versions don't matter. The laptop has 4.2.3.3. This newer computer I'm on now has 4.3.3.2. Think it's worth the effort?

I meant the desktop Deb directory - is there anything you want to keep???

Generally the difference between 'point' releases is quite small.

More to the point, excuse the pun, if the different LO releases were significant,
then it would be likely that the other systems would have been upgraded if it was reasonably easy to do so.

I wouldn't mess with it - unless you can discover something that causes problems for you.

My version (4.1.3.2) is older than both of yours, but it's very stable. ;)

I can't see you having any, if at all, very serious problems with a different in the Libre Office versions.

Enjoyed the pun! :) No, there was nothing to keep in that Deb directory. I was happy to get rid of it.

Yeah, I'm leaving that older version of LO on the laptop. (I updated the one desktop though--the GUIs did look a little different.) It's like a perfectionism or something, like there will be a comma missing when I switch from one version to the other and it will be the only typo in the book! Thanks.

Thanks Hb. Yeah, I think it will be okay.

If not you can always come back and ask. I use Libre Office and Open Office without a problem between Debian 7 and Windows 8.1, never get formatting issues or anything and a lot of these files are CVs or work stuff where appearance and particularly format is important. So you should be fine.

Is this solved now?

Thanks Hb. That's very reassuring. Yep, this thread is solved.

I think you have discarded this idea already, but I think it would be worth stressing the fact a bit more that this was a pretty bad one.

One fundamental thing to understand about package management on Linux (at least most of the mainstream distros) is that the system decides which version of a package is good for you. Unless you know exactly what you are doing you should not mess with this.
The package manager is responsible to make sure that all the packages on your system play nice with each other. If you decide to manually install a different version, this typically will cause problems.

I can be done, but as said above, you need to know what you are doing. Long story short: Only install software through the software center and/or apt-get on the command line. Do not download/copy around .deb files and install them manually.

Thanks for the warning, Joe. I will heed it!