Recently, I upgraded Visual Studio Code from 1.131.0 to 1.132.0 on Ubuntu 26.04.
During the upgrade, APT notified me that a batch of packages in the system were no longer needed, including several Rime input method components. Since I currently use Fcitx5 + Wubi Pinyin instead of Rime, I took the opportunity to inspect and clean up these residual packages.
I did not execute the uninstallation directly. Instead, I first used --dry-run to simulate and confirm the scope of impact, then performed the cleanup in two separate steps. This ultimately freed up about 122.8 MB of space. After restarting Fcitx5, Wubi Pinyin still works normally.
1. Currently using Fcitx5 Wubi Pinyin
I previously experimented with multiple Chinese input methods in Ubuntu, including Fcitx5, Rime, and Wubi Pinyin.
The related processes have been documented in the following two articles:
- Installing and configuring Fcitx5 Wubi Pinyin on Ubuntu 26.04
- Switching back from Rime to Fcitx5 Wubi Pinyin on Ubuntu 26.04
After a period of actual use, what I ultimately kept are:
- Fcitx5 input method framework
- Fcitx5 built-in Pinyin
- Fcitx5 Wubi Pinyin
- English (US) keyboard layout
Although Rime was installed and tested previously, it is no longer in use.
However, I discovered during this VS Code upgrade that some Rime data packages and dependency libraries still remained in the system.
2. Upgrading VS Code using a local .deb package
The VS Code installation package downloaded this time is:
code_1.132.0-1785860022_amd64.deb
The file is located at:
/home/wangqiang/下载/
Initially, I was somewhat concerned: would installing the .deb file through the Ubuntu graphical interface be affected by the Ubuntu Software Center or the Snap format, thereby incurring extra resource consumption?
In reality, as long as you are installing a local .deb file, what gets installed is still the Deb package; it will not automatically convert to Snap just because it was opened from the graphical interface.
However, to observe the complete installation and upgrade process, I still chose to execute it using the terminal:
cd /home/wangqiang/下载/
sudo apt install ./code_1.132.0-1785860022_amd64.deb
APT automatically detected that code was already installed in the system, so it performed a version upgrade rather than repeatedly installing a new copy of VS Code.
The key output is as follows:
Note, selecting 'code' instead of './code_1.132.0-1785860022_amd64.deb'
The following packages will be upgraded:
code
Unpacking code (1.132.0-1785860022) over (1.131.0-1785237861) ...
Setting up code (1.132.0-1785860022) ...
After the installation completes, execute:
code --version
The output is:
1.132.0
df53daabb18cd157bdb08c7f01c34df936cf12f4
x64
This shows that VS Code has been successfully upgraded to 1.132.0, and the x64 version is currently in use.
.deb package, and discovering cleanable Rime-related packages in the systemAs seen in the figure, VS Code upgraded normally, but APT simultaneously notified me that a batch of automatically installed packages was no longer needed.
3. APT indicates the presence of residual Rime packages
During the upgrade, APT indicated that the following packages were automatically installed but are no longer needed:
libgflags2.2
libgoogle-glog0v6t64
libleveldb1d
libyaml-cpp0.8
rime-data-bopomofo
rime-data-cangjie5
rime-data-luna-pinyin
rime-data-terra-pinyin
rime-essay
rime-prelude
The obvious Rime-related packages include:
rime-data-bopomoforime-data-cangjie5rime-data-luna-pinyinrime-data-terra-pinyinrime-essayrime-prelude
The other libraries are dependencies introduced when installing the related components previously.
Although I no longer use Rime, I am still using Wubi Pinyin, so I cannot simply delete packages just because I see rime-data-wubi or similar names.
I need to distinguish clearly first:
rime-data-wubi
belongs to the Rime Wubi input schema.
Whereas the Wubi Pinyin I currently use relies on Fcitx5 components, such as:
fcitx5
fcitx5-table
fcitx5-pinyin
fcitx5-chinese-addons
They are not the same set of input method components.
4. Fcitx5 input method status before cleanup
Before cleaning up, I first verified the current input method menu.
At that time, the menu showed:
- Keyboard – English (US)
- Pinyin
- Wubi Pinyin
It also displayed additional options such as Simplified Chinese, full-width punctuation, half-width characters, and prediction.
You cannot determine the dependency relationships between these packages just from the menu’s appearance, so it is still necessary to confirm via an APT simulation of the removal results.
5. Simulate cleanup with --dry-run first
I did not execute apt autoremove directly; instead, I first ran:
sudo apt autoremove --purge --dry-run
The simulation results showed that only the following 10 packages would be removed:
libgflags2.2
libgoogle-glog0v6t64
libleveldb1d
libyaml-cpp0.8
rime-data-bopomofo
rime-data-cangjie5
rime-data-luna-pinyin
rime-data-terra-pinyin
rime-essay
rime-prelude
The summary is:
Upgraded: 0, Installed: 0, Removed: 10, Not upgraded: 60
The currently used Fcitx5 components listed below did not appear in the list:
fcitx5
fcitx5-chinese-addons
fcitx5-pinyin
fcitx5-table
im-config
Therefore, it is confirmed that this automatic cleanup will not remove the currently used Wubi Pinyin framework.
After confirming the simulation results, I formally executed:
sudo apt autoremove --purge
This time, 10 packages were uninstalled, freeing up space:
86.4 MB
Next, I cleaned the APT download cache:
sudo apt clean
apt clean usually does not output anything extra when it completes normally.
6. Confirm that Fcitx5 core components still exist
After the cleanup, I used the following command to check the Fcitx5-related packages:
dpkg -l |
grep -E '^ii[[:space:]]+(fcitx5|fcitx5-chinese-addons|fcitx5-table|im-config)'
The results showed that the main components were all still there, including:
fcitx5
fcitx5-chinese-addons
fcitx5-chinese-addons-bin
fcitx5-chinese-addons-data
fcitx5-config-qt
fcitx5-data
fcitx5-pinyin
fcitx5-pinyin-gui
fcitx5-table
im-config
The GTK and Qt frontend modules were also retained:
fcitx5-frontend-gtk2
fcitx5-frontend-gtk3
fcitx5-frontend-gtk4
fcitx5-frontend-qt5
fcitx5-frontend-qt6
This indicates that the first cleanup did not affect the main Fcitx5 components.
7. Discovered three more Rime data packages
Next, I checked whether any Rime packages still existed in the system:
dpkg -l | grep -Ei 'rime|librime'
This command also matched several unrelated packages, such as:
libcolorhug2
nvidia-prime
python3-typing-extensions
This is because grep searches the entire line of text.
For example, the package name of nvidia-prime itself contains the consecutive letters rime, but it is clearly unrelated to the Rime input method.
The actual residual Rime packages are only:
rime-data-pinyin-simp
rime-data-stroke
rime-data-wubi
Among them:
rime-data-pinyin-simpis the Rime Simplified Pinyin schemarime-data-strokeis the Rime stroke input schemarime-data-wubiis the Rime Wubi input schema
Although the last package name contains wubi, it is not the fcitx5-table used by the current Fcitx5 Wubi Pinyin.
8. Simulate the removal of the remaining Rime data packages again
To confirm that no other software would be removed as a consequence, I first executed:
sudo apt purge --dry-run \
rime-data-pinyin-simp \
rime-data-stroke \
rime-data-wubi
The results showed that only these three packages would be uninstalled:
[Will be removed]:
rime-data-pinyin-simp
rime-data-stroke
rime-data-wubi
Summary:
Upgraded: 0, Installed: 0, Removed: 3, Not upgraded: 60
No Fcitx5 components appeared, so I formally executed:
sudo apt purge \
rime-data-pinyin-simp \
rime-data-stroke \
rime-data-wubi
This time, it freed up:
36.4 MB
Adding the 86.4 MB freed the first time, this cleanup freed a total of about:
86.4 MB + 36.4 MB = 122.8 MB
9. Check if there are any more packages to clean up
After completing the second cleanup, I simulated the execution again:
sudo apt autoremove --purge --dry-run
The result is:
Summary:
Upgraded: 0, Installed: 0, Removed: 0, Not upgraded: 60
This indicates that there are currently no more packages that can be automatically cleaned up.
To prevent a standard grep from mismatching unrelated packages like nvidia-prime, you can check only the package names:
dpkg -l |
awk '$1 == "ii" && ($2 ~ /^rime/ || $2 ~ /^librime/) {
print $2, $3
}'
The command produced no output, indicating that there are currently no installed packages starting with rime or librime.
10. Restart Fcitx5 and test Wubi Pinyin
After the cleanup, I clicked “Restart” from the Fcitx5 menu in the top right corner.
After restarting, the menu still displayed normally:
- Keyboard – English (US)
- Pinyin
- Wubi Pinyin
I then actually typed a passage of Chinese text, and Wubi Pinyin’s encoding, candidate words, and Chinese-English switching all worked normally.
This shows that the Wubi Pinyin currently in use indeed comes from Fcitx5 and does not depend on the deleted Rime data packages.
11. Will the cleanup noticeably improve performance?
This time, about 122.8 MB of disk space was freed, but it will not cause a sudden, noticeable improvement in computer performance.
Because these packages are mainly:
- Rime input schema files
- Dictionaries and configuration data
- Dependency libraries that are no longer used
They typically do not run as standalone background processes continuously consuming CPU.
Therefore, the main significance of this cleanup is:
- Reducing useless packages
- Freeing up some disk space
- Avoiding continued updates for unneeded packages
- Reducing interference when troubleshooting input method issues in the future
- Making the system’s software composition clearer
For computers with modest hardware configurations, freeing 122.8 MB at once is not a lot, but keeping the system clean long-term is still valuable.
12. Final results
This operation ultimately accomplished two things.
First, I upgraded VS Code from 1.131.0 to 1.132.0 using the official .deb package:
VS Code: 1.132.0
Architecture: x64
Second, I cleaned up the packages left behind after testing Rime:
First cleanup: 10 packages, freed 86.4 MB
Second cleanup: 3 packages, freed 36.4 MB
Total freed: about 122.8 MB
The final verification results are as follows:
- VS Code 1.132.0 is running normally
- Original settings and extensions are retained normally
- Fcitx5 core components are fully retained
- There are no installed Rime packages left in the system
apt autoremove --dry-runshows no packages to clean up- After restarting Fcitx5, Wubi Pinyin can be used for input normally
This operation also reiterates that when you see the apt autoremove prompt, it is not recommended to execute it immediately.
A safer approach is to first run:
sudo apt autoremove --purge --dry-run
After confirming that the packages to be deleted do not include components currently in use, then formally uninstall them. This way, you can clean up the system while minimizing the risk of accidentally deleting the input method or other important dependencies.