Computer systems like Windows have tons of software residue that is left when an application is installed and subsequently uninstalled.
Does Ubuntu have the same problem? Would my 5 year old Ubuntu install run the same as the day of install (not counting some of the system upgrades) if I uninstalled all the software I had installed on it over the years?
23 Answers
Ubuntu/Linux is set up in a differrent way.
Yes, traces are left behind -but- they do not impact the speed of your system.
On Linux libraries sometimes remain on your system. We call them orphans and there is a program called deborphan that removes them. But all you gain is a bit of space on your harddisk. Speed you will not gain. You get more speed by tweaking settings or by disabling services you do not use.
If you want a toolset that includes deborphan install Ubuntu Tweak.
Sometimes programs leave things there on purpose. Those tend to be settings files we manually edited. If you uninstall you have an option "--purge" that removes those while uninstalling; otherwise you are suppose to delete them your self. But again: these just take up space (and for that matter we are talking kilobytes not megabytes) and do not impact on your speed.
2 things related to speed: keep your / partition under 95% full and make sure your system does not need to swap alot. Those 2 are probably 2 main speed related issues.
4In addition to Rinzwind's answer, some program may leave profiles or files containing , for example, keys, passwords, names and things like personal data. Some of packets can ask you to confirm about keeping such files farther or don't keep anymore, some may not ask. It depends on particular application.
Uninstalling software is conceptually similar in both Windows and Ubuntu: files may get removed and configuration settings may be removed. Whether or not all the files or configuration settings are removed by the uninstall process, is dependent on the software you're uninstalling, not the OS.
Software (in both Windows and Ubuntu) may leave residues for many reasons ranging from simple laziness of the software creator, to keeping user settings for potential reinstallations, to consciously leaving files created by the software (an example would be a word processing software: users would be pretty mad if all the documents created with it were deleted upon uninstallation)
Generally, leaving files and configuration settings is a bit more frowned upon in the Linux world than in the Windows world, but in most cases any files or registry keys that are left are meant to be used only by the program in question. So apart from consuming space on your hard disk, they should not impact system performance and stability. This is true both for Windows and Ubuntu.
However, programs that make system modifications, such as drivers, daemons, system tools, etc., but actually any software that asked you for root access (elevation in Windows) during the installation process, has no technical obligations to remove everything upon uninstallations, and may leave residues that can compromise system performance, stability and security. Once again, this is true for both Windows and Ubuntu.
If you must guarantee that uninstallations won't negatively impact your system, make sure you install only software that doesn't require root access (elevation in Windows). If you will be installing software that requires root access (elevation in Windows), then all guarantees are off, so I would recommend you stick to software publishers that you trust, and hope for the best.
Notice that when I mention Windows, I'm talking about Windows Vista and above, which run on restricted user accounts by default.
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