[NEW USER] Having trouble understanding how installing/uninstalling software works, and finding a device/hardware manager

Hi! I’m a pretty new user of anything not-Windows and I’m in the process of fully migrating to a Lubuntu (laptop) and Kubuntu (desktop pc) enviroment. I’m mostly making sure everything matches (cloud storage, calendar, e-mail, that sorta stuff).

I’m having trouble with two things, and I would appreciate a little bit if help:

1) How installing/uninstalling programs works: I installed MEGAsync frome their site and when I wanted to uninstall it later, but it didn’t show up on Discover or Muon. I read the wiki but it was not helpful about this situation.

I posted on the Lubuntu subreddit and a kind person instructed me to do

sudo apt purge megasync

and that worked. Is this a recurrent issue or am I doing something wrong? Should I get more familiarized with the terminal commands?

I’m trying to pitch in Lubuntu to a classmate who has a really old laptop that gets stucked when barely opening a browser, but she’s not computer literate so now I’m not sure if it would be a viable solution.

2) Is there a device/hardware manager? Right from the get to I don’t have anything to see my devices, check RAM size, or even to see my disk space and how much is occupied.

I followed this video to install something calld Jockey or the Gnome device manager, and the terminal says they were installed, but they don’t show up on the application menu. And again, they don’t show up on Discover or Muon.

Am I greatly missing something?

Again, I’m pretty new to this, I’m trying to stick to Lubuntu because my crappy laptop flies with it.

I appreciate any help or input, have a great tuesday!

Hello @AkitoElPerro and welcome to lubuntu. If you want to find the list, you may use dpkg --list. And for uninstalling software, I find a post by loevborg from askubuntu which may assist you a bit.
[Here’s a rundown of the possible ways:

If the package has been installed via a package manager, you can remove it with one of the tools provided with this purpose:

  • dpkg --remove : the most basic command-line tool. Avoid.
  • apt-get remove or aptitude remove : these are the standard command-line tools. Aptitude is slightly preferred: it’s a bit more sophisticated. E.g., it can keep a log file of all package operations.
  • synaptic : GUI tool accessible through the GUI menu under “System/Administration”. Supports all features, a very nice program generally.
  • software center : even nicer GUI than synaptic . This is a better, updated version of the old “Add/Remove Programs”

All these get the job done. You can start with the most user-friendly (Software Center) and continue to aptitude, if you need certain features or install or remove programs very frequently]

The same sources can be used for installing software too. You may find discover and synaptic convenient.

And for device/hardware manager, you may check htop pre-installed with lubuntu. You may also look for gnome disks in discover. Again, most of the things should be done by software provided with lubuntu.
I agree, migrating to new software or operating systems is a difficult situation Where making decisions can have greater impact. I hope you will find comfort with the passage of time.

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You downloaded a .deb from MEGA. When you installed it, you possibly did so with GDEBI. If you open the .deb with GDEBI a second time, wait a second and it will show you an uninstall option in the upper right. That’s a nice handy GUI way of doing it. It’s often overlooked.

If you want to check hardware resources, there are so many ways to do that in Linux. You have everything from lshw to inxi. (Feel encouraged to search for those two terms.)

Don’t be afraid of the terminal. You get used to it and it truly is a better way to do some things. I always have three applications open - an email client, a browser, and a terminal emulator. I do a lot in all three.

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Nope, you hit it right on the nail. It isn’t there 'cause Lubuntu uses Muon instead. :wink:

I don’t think you installed it wrong unless you somehow got the wrong ISO from someone other than official Lubuntu site. Once you go through the installer… it should just go through the same steps it does for everyone else.

Someone can correct me here, but Gnome-dependent apps/packages won’t work on Lubuntu which uses LXQt for its desktop. This would constitute Gnome device manager. Not sure about Jockey though.

This would be why Lubuntu doesn’t have the same (Gnome) things you would see in regular Ubuntu.

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In just a few short months, those words will mean something - and you’ll know how to find information more efficiently. This isn’t something we can teach, it’s something you acquire on your own as you move forward learning the system.

You didn’t just ~poof~ understand Windows and certainly didn’t immediately understand the underlying system that makes Windows operate. That took time, as will this. It’s not an insurmountable problem. We’ve all done it, to some extent or another.

In my learning process, I made a grave mistake. I learned distros and not Linux. I learned how to use different distros, not concentrating on understanding Linux. It took a long time to correct that mistake. I’ve been exclusively using Linux for well over a decade, and there are still tons of things I don’t know. I actually like that, as it keeps me challenged to learn new things.

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