Unit 6 · Services, Ports, and Software · Lesson 18 of 25
Software That Should Not Be Installed
Finding and removing programs that have no business on this machine.
What is installed that should not be?
Browse it in a window
Ubuntu Software → Installed
That gives you a scrollable list with a Remove button next to each entry, which is the easiest way to work through the obvious ones such as games.
Check a specific name
dpkg -l | grep NAME
Run that for anything you suspect. If nothing comes back, it is not installed.
What counts as a finding
💡 Context decides, not the tool. A password cracker on a security analyst's laptop is a work tool. The same program on a library catalog server is a finding. The ReadMe tells you which machine you are standing on.
Remove it
sudo apt purge -y NAME
Some programs come as more than one package. If a check still fails after you removed something, look for a second package with a similar name:
dpkg -l | grep NAME # for example, john also ships john-data
Try it yourself
dpkg -l | grep john
dpkg -l | grep hydra
dpkg -l | grep aisleriot
Then open Ubuntu Software > Installed and read the whole list for anything else that does not belong.
Do this lesson for real
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