Ubuntu, how to be sure that everything is in order with the system?

Question

linux

The question may seem somewhat paranoid, but it is nonetheless very disturbing to me. The bottom line is that I switched to linux literally this week, and if in windows I knew exactly when the system was working fine, and when it was time to blow it down, then now I'm not sure of anything. In win, I knew exactly what and where I put and where I have what to store, then in linux I am in the dark. When I click to install this or that software, a bunch of packages are downloaded, can I be sure that when they were deleted, they were all erased, or that only the necessary packages were downloaded, that all the packages are of the current version? I have an ati video card and despite the fact that wow starts up, vlc slows down hard and hangs when switching to full screen, when the desktop effects are set to the maximum, applications unfold for 3 seconds, how can I find out what is the reason, computer limit or crooked firewood on video? In general, how do you understand that everything is ok in your system or, on the contrary, everything is bad?

Answer 1

There are some nuances about deletion:
- normal deletion (apt-get remove) deletes application files, but does not delete settings (similar to windows - it does not clean up the registry, and program files are not always completely, some settings.dat will remain) , that is, when you install the application next time, you will get the same settings as you were
- complete removal (apt-get purge) removes everything, both the program and settings
- automatic cleaning (apt-get autoremove) - removes packages that are no longer needed (those that were pulled out by dependencies for other, already removed, packages and are no longer used by the system)
Checking the integrity of dependencies apt-get check - can help if fatal errors occur during installation / removal
The Synaptic package manager also somehow supports these commands.
You can check rendering (maybe the drivers are not up) with the “glxinfo” command (“glxinfo | grep render” - skip a bunch of technical information) - there should be a line “direct rendering: Yes” and a line like- then related to the video chip, evaluate the speed by “glxgears”
PS I didn’t know in Windows where something was written when installing / starting applications, I had to install programs like Ashampoo Uninstaller and / or FileMon / RegMon, such unexpected places sometimes came across that “ knee-high harem pants, which the “true” programs from MS have

Answer 2

1) About packages - as long as you install everything from native repositories, you can be absolutely calm.
2) You should go there with specific questions about the video card.
3) If everything works, satisfies your needs, then the system is in order. If something is wrong - ask, we will help.

Answer 3

There should be a portrait of Rosenthal in horror

Answer 4

1 Do not wrap yourself up at all, the system will clean up unnecessary during a planned transition to a new distr.
about the graphics, it may be that the video is very simple, and you set unrealistic settings there, there is a limit to everything.
I like GMA 950 and I can surprise guests with pranks of the interface.
Although playing counter on this chip is uncomfortable even in Windows :)

Answer 5

The problem is most likely in the kernel update, after which the nvidia drivers crashed. Reinstall drivers.
To find out which package puts what where - apt-file by package name, dpkg -x (-e) to the package file.

Answer 6

You can use aptitude remove enum_package_name to automatically remove unneeded packages during the process of uninstalling an application.