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  • I recently ran the command sudo apt-get install imagemagick
  • During installation, apt-get showed the message After this operation, 84.7 MB of additional disk space will be used.
  • I then decided I didn't want imagemagick any more, so ran sudo apt-get purge imagemagick, which showed the message After this operation, 119 kB disk space will be freed.
  • Noticing the discrepancy between 84.7 MB and 119 kB, I then ran the command sudo apt-get autoremove, which showed 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 281 not upgraded., and sudo apt-get autoremove --purge, which also showed 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 281 not upgraded.
  • Am I missing something here? It seems like imagemagick consumed 84.7 MB on installation and only freed 119 kB on removal - how do I remove the remaining data?
karel
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Jake Levi
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  • Ubunut version please? – mook765 Jun 22 '23 at 20:14
  • `$ lsb_release -a` -> ... `Description: Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS` ... (installed inside WSL on Windows 10) – Jake Levi Jun 22 '23 at 20:21
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    18.04 is End of Life and not supported anymore, therefor off-topic here. `imagemagick` is a dummypackage, removing this package does not remove the software. Check your logs `/var/log/apt/term.log` which packages actually got installed. I think `sudo apt remove --autoremove imagemagick*` will solve your problem – mook765 Jun 22 '23 at 20:32
  • Interesting, thanks! When you say "removing this package does not remove the software" - what is `apt` removing, if not the software? – Jake Levi Jun 22 '23 at 20:37
  • Also, is it safe to use `*` in `apt remove`? I'm just looking through the comments and answers [here](https://askubuntu.com/questions/187888/what-is-the-correct-way-to-completely-remove-an-application) – Jake Levi Jun 22 '23 at 20:44
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    It removes the package named `imagemagick` which is a dummy package. Read the package description `apt show imagemagick`.The command I suggested should be safe, just read the output of apt carefully before proceeding. In doubt, check your logs as suggested and remove the specific packages. – mook765 Jun 22 '23 at 21:03
  • Note to self: an easy and safe way to see all installed packages which contain the string `imagemagick` is to use the command `apt list | grep imagemagick` – Jake Levi Jun 22 '23 at 21:03
  • *That should have said `apt list --installed | grep imagemagick` (note **`--installed`**) – Jake Levi Jun 22 '23 at 21:20
  • Also, @mook765 what exactly do you mean by a "dummy package" in this context? I've done some Googling but there doesn't seem to be a unique definition of "dummy package", and it's not explained explicitly what's meant by "dummy package" in the output from `apt show imagemagick` – Jake Levi Jun 22 '23 at 21:48
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    "Dummy package" is a package that installs basically almost nothing by itself (hence only 119 kB is freed by removing it), but pulls in several other packages as dependencies when installed - and it's those dependencies that take up 84.7 MB. Running `apt autoremove` not always removes all package's dependencies. You might need to check the dependencies of `imagemagick` and remove each of them individually. When you installed `imagemagick`, `apt` should have shown you all the dependencies it pulled in. – raj Jun 22 '23 at 22:31
  • `281 not upgraded` suggests that you have other problems to address first. – user535733 Jun 22 '23 at 22:38
  • [Ubuntu 18.04 LTS has reached the end of it's *standard* support life](https://fridge.ubuntu.com/2023/05/13/extended-security-maintenance-for-ubuntu-18-04-bionic-beaver-begins-31-may-2023/) thus is now off-topic here unless your question is specific to helping you move to a supported release of Ubuntu. Ubuntu 18.04 ESM support is available, but not on-topic here, see https://askubuntu.com/help/on-topic See also https://ubuntu.com//blog/18-04-end-of-standard-support – guiverc Jun 22 '23 at 22:48
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    18.04.2 implies you're *years* behind on applying security fixes... I hope you keep that system offline! (https://fridge.ubuntu.com/2019/08/08/ubuntu-18-04-3-lts-released/ shows the date in 2019 when the 18.04.3 ISO was released, but installed systems upgraded to it **before** that date!) – guiverc Jun 22 '23 at 22:49

1 Answers1

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Luckily I still had the terminal window open with the output from the command sudo apt-get install imagemagick, which contained the following output in particular:

$ sudo apt-get install imagemagick

...

The following additional packages will be installed:
...
Suggested packages:
...
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  fontconfig fontconfig-config fonts-dejavu-core fonts-droid-fallback fonts-noto-mono ghostscript gsfonts hicolor-icon-theme imagemagick
  imagemagick-6-common imagemagick-6.q16 libavahi-client3 libavahi-common-data libavahi-common3 libcairo2 libcups2 libcupsfilters1 libcupsimage2
  libdatrie1 libdjvulibre-text libdjvulibre21 libfftw3-double3 libfontconfig1 libgraphite2-3 libgs9 libgs9-common libharfbuzz0b libijs-0.35
  libilmbase12 libjbig0 libjbig2dec0 libjpeg-turbo8 libjpeg8 liblcms2-2 liblqr-1-0 libltdl7 libmagickcore-6.q16-3 libmagickcore-6.q16-3-extra
  libmagickwand-6.q16-3 libnetpbm10 libopenexr22 libpango-1.0-0 libpangocairo-1.0-0 libpangoft2-1.0-0 libpaper-utils libpaper1 libpixman-1-0
  libthai-data libthai0 libtiff5 libwmf0.2-7 libxcb-render0 libxcb-shm0 libxrender1 netpbm poppler-data
...

So I copied all the packages listed below "The following NEW packages will be installed" into a single command preceeded by sudo apt purge, which I ran, and this reclaimed the missing disk space.

Jake Levi
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