"Unable to locate package" error during apt-get uninstall
I'm trying to clean out old CUDA installations by running
sudo apt-get purge nvidia-*
but I get the errors
E: Unable to locate package nvidia-diag-driver-local-repo-ubuntu1604-390.46_1.0-1_amd64.deb
E: Couldn't find any package by glob 'nvidia-diag-driver-local-repo-ubuntu1604-390.46_1.0-1_amd64.deb'
E: Couldn't find any package by regex 'nvidia-diag-driver-local-repo-ubuntu1604-390.46_1.0-1_amd64.deb'
I had deleted the deb file previously after finishing the install. I tried re-downloading the .deb file and running dpkg -i on it, but that doesn't fix the error either.
dpkg -l | grep nvidia gives
ii nvidia-390 390.48-0ubuntu0~gpu16.04.3 amd64 NVIDIA binary driver - version 390.48
ii nvidia-390-dev 390.48-0ubuntu0~gpu16.04.3 amd64 NVIDIA binary Xorg driver development files
rc nvidia-diag-driver-local-repo-ubuntu1604-390.46 1.0-1 amd64 nvidia-diag-driver-local repository configuration files
ii nvidia-modprobe 390.46-0ubuntu1 amd64 Load the NVIDIA kernel driver and create device files
ii nvidia-opencl-icd-390 390.48-0ubuntu0~gpu16.04.3 amd64 NVIDIA OpenCL ICD
ii nvidia-prime 0.8.2 amd64 Tools to enable NVIDIA's Prime
ii nvidia-settings 396.18-0ubuntu0~gpu16.04.1 amd64 Tool for configuring the NVIDIA graphics driver
Solution 1:
You are globbing current files in the directory. Instead of what you are running, try:
sudo apt-get purge nvidia-\*
# or...
sudo apt-get purge 'nvidia-*'
The main clue that tells me this is the case: You tried to remove packages named like blah.deb in the apt-get purge output. Of course packages aren't normally named that way...
To see what I mean, check ls -l in your current directory. You should see the .deb files you are matching. If you wouldn't have those files in your current directory, the 'nvidia-*' would pass through unaltered to the apt-get purge command.
Good rule to remember: It's always best to protect your arguments with single quotes ' to prevent unintended shell globbing and other expansions.