Yes, and I'm happy to tell you that after doing them I see no bad behaviors or monstrosities on my laptop .
I have also removed a number of apps that were installed on Zorin with out any consequences ......
HOWEVER
I once deleted Nautilus in it's entirety because I use Nemo and saw no need to have 2 file apps .... well at first I saw no real change but soon after I started having some unsolvable problems in a number of areas .....
Various members on this board spent hours trying to solves these problems some of which could be fixed ..... some couldn't and some I simply ignored .... and so I went for a long time .... months .....
Some how during one of the head scratching sessions I happened to mention to Aravisian when he something to me about doing something on Nautilus I told him I didn't have Nautilus I use Nemo .....
There was a long silence ..... not sure if he had fainted or what but he typed back that Nautilus could not be removed from Zorin as it was connected to all kinds of different stuff not just folders ....
I did a complete wipe of my Zorin drive and made a reinstall of Zorin using a Rescuezilla back-up file that I knew contained the Nautilus app and have never had any of those problems again .....
So please just be careful with which apps you delete and which ones you keep ...... but I'm sure you already know that .....
At this point, I wouldn't utilize the auto-remove command, at all. Doing so would possibly make internet connectivity impossible, file sharing wouldn't be possible (local network and internet) as well as cause issues in other software.
You can uninstall vlc but NEVER run the autoremove command.
You could try this: 14.04 - How can I disable apt-get autoremove? - Ask Ubuntu
Or this:
https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/how-do-i-get-rid-of-autoremove-717521/
But before, let's ask @Aravisian who surely knows if it's safe to do
I would not remove or disable the autoremove functionality. It is far too useful. This would be no different from removing the remove
function from apt. You need to have it for when you need it.
Yes @Frog, I know, in fact from How to go back to the previous directory just by double clicking on ubuntu Aravisian explains that
Nautilus is integrated into the Zorin Core Desktop if on Core. Do not uninstall it.
Also,
It is true of many D.E.'s that the file manager manages the Desktop.
I hope there's a way to remove only VLC stuff then, excluding the removal of other packages. The fact here is that terminal tells me they are no longer required
but then you guys tell me that using sudo apt autoremove
for them can cause problems. I'd be glad to uninstall only VLC and keep modules if you say they must be held for the system stability, despite the terminal saying otherwise. However, by what I read after entering sudo apt remove vlc
once I enter Y
I'll delete only VLC, because to remove packages that were installed alongside VLC I'd have to enter sudo apt autoremove
. So I suppose entering Y
will uninstall VLC while holding those packages.
Yeah, I'm not going to ask how to remove preinstalled commands, I know that someday they can come in handy. Other additional or optional commands libraries must be downloaded by the user, right? Because sometimes I entered some random commands and each time I was told if I meant a specific command that isn't installed so I was suggested to install it. It's not a problem, just a curiosity . But I won't try no more, just to avoid entering a valid command that devastates my system.
VLC package does not list nano, lshw, time, zorin-os-overlay, busybox-static command-not-found + others listed
as dependencies and as such - Removing VLC will not autoremove those packages.
Something else that you already removed may be what is causing those to be delegated for autoremoval.
You can prevent them from being removed using the autoremove command by setting those packages to Manually Installed.
busybox-static command-not-found friendly-recovery hdparm info python3-commandnotfound python3-gdbm time lshw nano
Are not unnecessary applications. These are normally included in any Linux build for basic functionality.
Busybox has to do with common kernel utilities necessary for any linux build. It is already a stripped down version of what was always included in the kernel.
command-not-found is the utility that searches for the commands you use in the terminal. If it is not available, it reports this by printing "command not found" to the terminal. A necessary utility.
freindly-recovery is the UI you experience when you choose recovery in GRUB. This is necessary to provide access to previous kernels and the root shell prompt, with networking, if required. All recovery actions are performed by this software. While you may be able to recover your system without it, it would be extremely difficult.
hdparm provides a command line interface to various kernel interfaces supported by the Linux SATA/PATA/SAS "libata" subsystem and the older IDE driver subsystem. Many newer (2008 and later) USB drive enclosures now also support "SAT" (SCSI-ATA Command Translation) and therefore may also work with hdparm. This is the documentation description from here. Basically, it is saying that this utility is how your system is able to access and interact with the compatible drives. You would have a hard time saving any data or even running your OS without this.
Info was designed to offer documentation that was comprehensive, hyperlinked, and possible to output to multiple formats.
python3-commandnotfound performs the same functionality for python3 what command-not-found does for linux.
python3-gdbm allows python3 to interact with and understand linux databases.
Python is so integrated into linux anymore, a lot of the functionality that you find is now written in python...making it a necessary part of the system.
time, obviously, handles your system clock and timezone to display the correct time. It also offers the system a reliable way to record events, log information and provides the cron utility a base for when actions should occur. Your system would throw many errors without this key utility.
lshw is a basic utility to provide hardware information. It interacts with the kernel to determine what hardware configuration you have and allows you to view that configuration. Troubleshooting would be difficult without this utility.
nano is a terminal editor used to modify configuration files and other such documents. You could actually code inside this editor, without ever having to leave the terminal. While it isn't necessary, I believe emacs, another terminal editor, is also included, it would be difficult to edit files in the terminal without it (sometimes necessary if you are working from the recovery root shell).
bind9-dnsutils ftp iputils-tracepath strace tcpdump telnet
are all networking utilities. Internet access would be impossible if bind9-dnsutils were removed, since it allows for url to address translation.
strace, tcpdump and iputils-tracepath make troubleshooting connections with the internet possible. Without them, you would have serious issue attempting to resolve network issues.
telnet allows you to connect remotely to other networked computers, locally and on the Web. Many remote connection applications require this standard to connect to another machine...including virtual machines.
ftp is a protocol that defines how to share files remotely and access directories remotely. Many storage utilities use this or sftp to connect and store files online.
While all of these are deemed can be removed, once you open an application that requires any one of them, you will get error, upon error. Many of these utilities expect the others existence. Though it says they are safe for removal, that is because, at the time the command ran, they were not in use by any application.
I don't know what all you removed, but you should be careful as though you don't think you use it, never accessed it directly, it may be something you access regularly without realizing.
I agree I have removed VLC more than a year ago with no ill effects that I can see ..... I think I used Synaptic Package Manager to remove it .....
For me either via terminal or via Synaptic Package Manager it's fine, I just have to remove it since the basic preinstalled Video is enough for me. I have to make some searches to be sure nothing bad will happen by proceeding.
sudo apt remove vlc
started.
0 updated, 0 installed, 1 to be removed and 15 not updated.
After this operation, 229 kB of disk space will be freed.
Continue? [Y/n] Y
(Reading the database... 297849 currently installed files and directories).
Removing vlc (3.0.9.2-1)...
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.64ubuntu1)...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.36.0-1ubuntu1)...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.24-1ubuntu3)...
Now let's hope no monstrosities arise . After how long or how many computer boots can I expect to see some kind of damage when I do these kinds of things?
Immediately - since your terminal output only shows One Package removed: VLC.
You're fine.
Ah, well, then I see nothing bad right now .
I didn't run sudo apt autoremove
, I understood that's better to not remove them.
Current situation:
Calculator listed under system application, no
Remove
button (low priority)
Calendar waiting for advice
Rygel waiting for advice
Relay the input of sudo apt remove --dry-run gnome-calendar
The following packages were installed automatically and are no longer required:
adwaita-qt bind9-dnsutils busybox-static command-not-found friendly-recovery
ftp hdparm info iputils-tracepath irqbalance libaribb24-0
libbasicusageenvironment1 libcddb2 libdvbpsi10 libebml4v5 libgck-1-0:i386
libgcr-base-3-1:i386 libgroupsock8 libixml10 liblivemedia77 libmad0
libmatroska6v5 libopenmpt-modplug1 libplacebo7 libprotobuf-lite17
libproxy-tools libqt5x11extras5 libresid-builder0c2a libsecret-1-0:i386
libsidplay2 libspatialaudio0 libssh2-1 libudisks2-0:i386 libupnp13
libusageenvironment3 libvlc-bin libvlc5 libvlccore9 lshw ltrace mtr-tiny
nano python3-commandnotfound python3-gdbm strace tcpdump telnet time vlc-bin
vlc-data vlc-l10n vlc-plugin-base vlc-plugin-notify vlc-plugin-qt
vlc-plugin-samba vlc-plugin-skins2 vlc-plugin-video-output
vlc-plugin-video-splitter vlc-plugin-visualization zorin-os-census
zorin-os-overlay
Use "sudo apt autoremove" to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
gnome-calendar
0 updated, 0 installed, 1 to be removed, and 43 not updated.
Remv gnome-calendar [3.38.2-1+zorin1]
Now that I uninstalled both VLC Media Player and Rhythmbox with Terminal I think that it's safe to uninstall programs until I limit to the software uninstallation and never run sudo apt autoremove
since most of the dependencies are necessary for the system. Also because at the end of the output the target of the uninstallation is the program and maybe some of its components and not even dependencies by default. But I see VLC Media Players stuff on the dependencies , is this stuff that's on VLC Media Player folder that's still somewhere or they are on another place?
You can attempt to find them by either navigating to root in nautilus/thunar or the terminal and use the search bar or find in the terminal to look for the parent folder containing vlc*.
This will most likely be in /usr/bin, /usr/share/bin, /usr/lib, /usr/share/lib, or could even be in ~/.config/vlc... it is tough to consider all the places a developer may place files.
Once found you can remove the parent directory of those binaries/libraries or the individual files.
I think it's safe (@Aravisian @337harvey confirm please) for you to run
sudo apt remove --purge vlc*
Search results in Home:
Search results in Computer:

Note that I stopped the search after 1 minute of search still going on. I really need Bleachbit or Ubuntu Cleaner or I'll face an apparently endless manual cleaning for every uninstallation.
I thought he already had...
Luca, please run
sudo apt install bind9-dnsutils busybox-static command-not-found friendly-recovery ftp hdparm info iputils-tracepath irqbalance libaribb24-0 libbasicusageenvironment1 libcddb2 libdvbpsi10 libebml4v5 libgck-1-0:i386 libgcr-base-3-1:i386 libgroupsock8 libixml10 liblivemedia77 libmad0 libmatroska6v5 libopenmpt-modplug1 libplacebo7 libprotobuf-lite17 libproxy-tools libqt5x11extras5 libresid-builder0c2a libsecret-1-0:i386 libsidplay2 libspatialaudio0 libssh2-1 libudisks2-0:i386 libupnp13 libusageenvironment3 libvlc-bin libvlc5 libvlccore9 lshw ltrace mtr-tiny nano python3-commandnotfound python3-gdbm strace tcpdump telnet time zorin-os-census zorin-os-overlay
That will preserve those packages and set them to manually installed so you will have no need to worry about running or not running autoremove
in future.
Partly because Bleachbit and UbuntuCleaner both run autoremove
as part of the cleaning process.
Perfect.
After, Luca, run sudo apt autoremove
without pressing Y and post what it is trying to remove