Ubuntu – Removing popularity-contest without trashing the system

administrationaptuninstall

I do want to uninstall the "popularity-contest" package from my system.

While I know that I can disable it with 

$ dpkg-reconfigure popularity-contest

it is still a package I want removed.

Unfortunately, the "ubuntu-standard" package depends on it (instead of just having it recommended). Removing popcon would thus remove ubuntu-standard, and my system would be trashed. See Popularity Contest should be uninstallable for the features request to make it uninstallable.

Until that bug is fixed, I need a way to get it uninstalled.

How can I do that? Is there a trick to convince the package manager that the dependency is not necessary?

Best Answer

Given that ubuntu-standard is a metapackage, removing it do not imply the removing of any other package, nor the removing of some functionality:

$ sudo apt-get --simulate purge popularity-contest 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  popularity-contest* ubuntu-standard*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 to remove and 13 not upgraded.
Purg ubuntu-standard [1.245]
Purg popularity-contest [1.53ubuntu1]
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