Installing/uninstalling multiple/different versions of an application (e.g. virtualbox) on Ubuntu 13.04

Question

I've been trying to get vagrant to work with virtualbox for hours now and I've been trying different combinations of versions of both. I finally got the whole thing working but during the painful process I wondered the following (I am a linux noob btw so please excuse me if these questions sound really dumb and vague)

• When I uninstall virtualbox (or any application for that matter) through Ubuntu software centre does it leave any extra garbage (kind of like windows and registry) that could possibly cause future problems (e.g. during upgrades, reinstallations)? Or are they (or at least virtualbox) completely encapsulated (kind of like .app files on OS X) that I probably won't ever need to worry about it after removal?

• Is there any relatively easy and safe remove all these garbage leftovers (if any) to ensure I don't have version problems later on?

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

For now, VirtualBox 4.2.18 + Vagrant 1.3.1 is the good combination.

A few tips:

• better start to get your hands dirty with commands instead of software center (even synaptic is better than that crap). For VirtualBox

• To check what the virtualbox-4.2 package contains => dpkg -L virtualbox-4.2, you'll have a better understanding of what installing the package means. Removing the packages removes all the files contained in the package.

• apt-get purgeremoves the package as well as the configuration files, I think that is what you want.

• to clean up unwanted configration files system wide, try => aptitude purge '~c'

• start to use deborphan and gtkorphan (GUI) to cleanup orphaned packages.

To answer your questions:

• NOT really. Only configuration files and your virtual machines remain.

• sudo apt-get purge virtualbox-4.2 or after you've run sudo apt-get remove do a aptitude purge '~c'

• You can also delete ~/.VirtualBox, it's safe to delete.