Why apt remove tries to remove a file that matches the package name pattern?

Ubuntu
1

Hello friends

At Ubuntu Desktop 22.04 is installed VirtualBox 7 and if exists the /home/<username>/deb directory - deb is a custom directory - and there is located the virtualbox-7.0_7.0.14-161095~Ubuntu~jammy_amd64.deb file. If is executed the following command:

sudo apt remove virtualbox*

It fails with the following error message:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package virtualbox-7.0_7.0.14-161095~Ubuntu~jammy_amd64.deb

If is executed the sudo apt remove virtualbox* command in other directory where is empty or exists files that do not match the virtualbox* pattern is possible to remove.

Just as an experiment, if in other directory exists the virtualbox.adoc file and if the sudo apt remove virtualbox* command is executed it fails with the following error message:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package virtualbox.adoc
E: Couldn't find any package by glob 'virtualbox.adoc'

Question

  • Why apt remove tries to remove a file that matches the package name pattern?

I assumed the apt remove command should be able to remove in peace the package installed within the internals paths owned and managed by apt itself. Furthermore through man apt at the install, reinstall, remove, purge (apt-get(8)) section does not appear a note/indication about this behavior

2

Hi Manuel,
I think the issue is that the shell is interpreting virtualbox*
You might be able to protect it with quotes, ie

apt remove "virtualbox*"

then it would be passed to apt unchanged
but
I am not sure if apt can interpret the ‘*’

Regards
Neville

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3

Thanks Neville, the “” did do the trick

Practically it is the first time I see the “” being used for the apt command. BTW it works with ‘’ too

Thanks again!

1 Like
4

Just in case.

The sudo apt remove virtualbox* commad was taken from this tutorial:

See the How to Uninstall VirtualBox 7 from Ubuntu/LinuxMint/Debian section

And exists the following tutorial by ItsFoss as follows:

See the How to remove VirtualBox from Ubuntu section. Where exists the sudo apt remove virtualbox virtualbox-* command.

About the commands, because the former is shorter than the latter, it was taken.

As an extra observation, see that in the latter is used virtualbox-* and not virtualbox* as the former. The point is, the latter command works fine (already tested) and was not necessary use neither “” nor ‘’. Interesting this slight difference.

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5

I know that the problem has been solved for you @Manuel_Jordan but I’ll still pitch in to explain what was happening.

When you use

sudo apt remove virtualbox*

The glob expands right there and tries to match file names starting with virtualbox*

If it finds file with names starting with virtualbox, the command becomes:

sudo apt remove virtualbox-7.0_7.0.14-161095~Ubuntu~jammy_amd64.deb

and it results in error because apt cannot find any package named virtualbox-7.0_7.0.14-161095~Ubuntu~jammy_amd64.deb.

If there are no files starting with virtualbox, virtualbox* is passed to apt remove and apt remove expands it to match package names starting with virtualbox.

When you protect glob with double quotes, it is not expanded by the shell immediately. Instead apt remove receives “virtulabox*” and then apt remove command expands to find package names starting with virtualbox.

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6

Hello @abhishek

As usual huge thanks for the polite and valuable feedback.

That’s the reason and origin of the confusion, why does the apt command take in consideration the files within the same directory where it is executed if all the software/repositories managed by apt are stored in a different and specific known path?.

To be honest I assumed from the beginning the files within the same directory where the apt command is executed are completely ignored because they do not represent a software/repository by themselves.

An through man there is no a kind of indication about this behavior

As a friendly suggestion: I am not sure if is valuable to create a tutorial about this situation and add a simple comparison about when this situation enters in action or not according the virtualbox* and virtualbox-* patterns respectively

7

For that you need to know the working of glob pattern.

By nature, glob virtualbox* gets expanded by shell itself for any matching file names in the current directory.

It’s not apt command’s fault. It’s how the shell behaves with glib pattern (*).

Since the shell already expands the glob, the command becomes sudo apt remove virtualbox-7.0_7.0.14-161095~Ubuntu~jammy_amd64.deb

apt cannot ignore things on its own. It has got some arguments. It checks them and find no package names matching the argument to remove and hence it throws the error.

I don’t think a tutorial will be able to cover for various kinds of situation you could encounter with glob. The forum discussions are the best ways to clear your confusion such as this :slight_smile:

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