How to remove Python 2 in 16.04?

Ubuntu has dropped Python 2 in 16.04. It is still installed after an upgrade, though (it was not part of the "obsolete packages").

Is there a clean way to remove Python 2 and all its dependencies in a clean way (to completely get rid of it)?

Is an apt purge the way to go?

root@ubuntu ~# apt purge python2.7
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following package was automatically installed and is no longer required:
  libnss-ldap
Use 'apt autoremove' to remove it.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  auth-client-config* ldap-auth-client* ldap-auth-config* libpam-ldap* libsmbclient* ndiff* python* python-bs4* python-chardet* python-crypto* python-dnspython*
  python-html5lib* python-ldb* python-lxml* python-ntdb* python-pkg-resources* python-samba* python-setuptools* python-six* python-talloc* python-tdb* python2.7* samba*
  samba-common-bin* samba-dsdb-modules* samba-libs* samba-vfs-modules* smbclient* winbind*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 29 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 58.4 MB disk space will be freed.

Solution 1:

As there are still a lot of packages that depend on Python2 (like Samba and VirtualBox) you should have a close look at the packages that apt wants to remove before you let it proceed.

Use

sudo apt purge python2.7-minimal

to completely remove Python2 and everything that depends on it.