How do I remove a previously installed app/software on Ubuntu 16.04

Question

Like, in Windows, in Control Panel, we have Uninstall a Program option, is there anyway I can uninstall a program on Ubuntu? I have installed some programs previously, I do not remember the version and command line i wrote in terminal (because after that, I have used many commands) etc. I searched for a solution on web, and mostly I got an answer, to use Ubuntu software centers. But I do not see many of the softwares I had installed. (For eg. Android Studio, QT. etc) I wish to have a GUI where I can uninstall such programs. Is it possible?

Solution

To see the commands that you have previously typed at the command line, type;

history

To search your history for commands that installed a program;

history | grep install

(Your history is not infinite, so it depends how long ago you installed the programs if it is still in your history)

To uninstall a program from the command line type;

sudo apt-get remove <program>

If you also want to remove any associated config;

sudo apt-get purge <program>

I don't use the software centre, but it should simply be a matter of highlighting the program you installed and clicking uninstall (or delete).

I do use synaptic. It's a package manager GUI, without the bells and whistles of software centre. You install it with;

sudo apt-get install synaptic

This GUI lists all available packages and allows you to manipulate them as you see fit. (Install, remove, upgrade etc). You can sort the columns, so in your case you would sort by what's installed.

Comments

[George Udosen]

If you remember the program or packages your installed simply run sudo apt remove --purge package_name for all such packages and when done do sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade

[Elder Geek]

synaptic is a low-level GUI. ,,,,

[Boris Hamanov]

Do you know the name(s) of the programs that you wish to remove? If you installed from source code, you probably used commands like ./configure and make and sudo make install. Does this sound familiar?

[David Foerster]

It depends on how you installed the software.