Have migrated my Daily PC to Linux Mint about 4-5 months ago. So far, the experience is good (except the initial part where i have to find a solution to sync Google drive locally without using the Online Accounts function).

But i have something which i am still very blur. In the initial part, i do a couple of terminal commands to install the stuff reuired for VSStudio and various plug-ins for my retro computer platform development.

I am still confused about where i can see all the stuff that has been installed. In Windows, i simply go to "Add or Remove Programs" and can see everything there. Here is not so easy unless i install everything from "Software Manager", but there are stuff which i need which is not available there.

After a couple of days, i have no idea what i have installed, much less a few months later. So i have a feeling if i ever need to remove these things, i won't know where to start. I understand you can check the list of installed programs using the sudo apt command, but that shows literally a gazillion stuff including dependancies.

How should i go about managing this? Any advice would be appreciated. Bear in mind i am a Linux noob, although i have used UNIX decades ago during college days. (I still know how to use vi!!!! ).

TQ

Hi and welcome to the Linux club.

If you installed packages by commands like $ sudo apt install package, you can always check your commands history by:
$ less ~/.bash_history

So if you wanna remove package, just type:
$ sudo apt remove package, OR
$ sudo apt purge package (this will do a clean remove by also removing config files)

If you wanna use GUI, there is Synaptic. Basically it's just a front end to the CLI. You can install it by:
$ sudo apt install synaptic

You can also use commands to find any installed package and decide whether you want to remove it or not:
$ dpkg -l | grep -i package, OR
$ apt list --installed | grep -i package
*replace the word "package" to anything you're looking for

This post has been edited by Kadaj: Dec 2 2025, 10:19 AM

start menu
looking for 'software manager'

long answer
--
which mint ?
debian, ubuntu, cinammon, mate, xfce

How do we know which application that was compiled and installed from source codes?

Thanks for your reply, but it is still a whole bunch of stuff which i have no idea what it is. Pretty sure i have installed a couple of things, but not to this extent. I suppose all these are either dependancies or system stuff....so i can't remove anything or manage anything...once i have installed something via terminal, it will probably be there forever unless i remember what i had install...🤦‍♂️

We typically install packages by using system package managers like apt, dnf, pacman or etc. If you install by compiling from source code yourselves, you'll know it very clearly coz it's much more complicated than just typing $ sudo apt install package.

There is another way to check it.
If you wanna know if a package called firefox is installed by system package managers or not, you can run the command like $ apt list firefox OR even $ sudo apt remove firefox.
If the package manager doesn't show it's installed or it can't manage the package, then you can check snap, flatpak and appimage.
If none of the package manager is managing the package, then you can question where did the package come from.
Don't worry about it.

If somehow you want to keep the system clean, just reinstall the system.
It only takes 10-15 mins to set up a new system.