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Old 09-16-2012, 08:17 PM   #1
Novatian
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Problem program fixing in linux compared to windows


Good day, in windows if a program does not work, I would remove it and format the free space, but what does one do in Linux, such as Fedora or Ubuntu or Android?
 
Old 09-16-2012, 09:00 PM   #2
cortman
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Novatian View Post
Good day, in windows if a program does not work, I would remove it and format the free space, but what does one do in Linux, such as Fedora or Ubuntu or Android?
4 years on LQ, 400 posts and you don't know how to remove software? With all due respect,

Ubuntu:

Code:
sudo apt-get get remove program
Fedora:

Code:
su -C 'yum remove program'
A google search would have given you all the answers you needed...
 
Old 09-17-2012, 11:30 AM   #3
DavidMcCann
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Actually, the correct answers are

sudo apt-get remove program
su -c 'yum remove program'
 
Old 09-17-2012, 11:50 AM   #4
TobiSGD
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This will, at least on the Debian based distributions, leave the system-wide configuration files (usually in /etc) intact. If you have an issue that is caused by wrong configuration it would be better to use
Code:
apt-get purge package-name
Keep in mind that the name of the program and the name of the package package don't have to be the same (prominent example: the package chromium does not contain the Chromium webbrowser).
But I wouldn't consider a re-install to be a solution for fixing programs in the first place, since you don't know what happened to the system (why is the program not working in the first place?) and if that will occur again.

The usual way I would approach a non-working program:
1. Start it from the commandline. This way you may get error-messages that you possibly will not get when you start the program from a menu or icon, like a missing or broken dependency.
2. Make a copy of the configuration and restore it to the factory settings. In many cases you will find a default configuration file in the programs directory in /usr/share or /usr/share/doc.
3. That is rarely the case, but sometimes it is really the program that is suddenly broken, may be due to a (now fixed) file-system error or a (now replaced) bad sector on the disk. So at this point I would try a re-install.
4. If that all does not help it is time for using a websearch, may be you encountered a bug that someone has already reported, may be you find someone on a forum like LQ who has had the same problem and solved it.
5. If you still have no solution now it is the time to open a new thread here.
 
  


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