Removing popularity-contest without trashing the system?

Solution 1:

Given that ubuntu-standard is a metapackage, removing it do not imply the removing of any other package, nor the removing of some functionality:

$ sudo apt-get --simulate purge popularity-contest 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  popularity-contest* ubuntu-standard*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 to remove and 13 not upgraded.
Purg ubuntu-standard [1.245]
Purg popularity-contest [1.53ubuntu1]

Solution 2:

To remove the package entirely in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

sudo apt-get remove popularity-contest

Yes, it mentions ubuntu-standard in the removal dialog. So look at this list:

Packages Related to ubuntu-standard (Ubuntu.com)

Notice that nano is included in the Ubuntu Standard list.

To verify that removing popularity-contest via this method has not hurt the system, try it out:

nano test.tmp

and you will see that nano still works fine.

In other words, you can see that this proves that removing the install stub left over from the initial installation of the Ubuntu Standard Packages will not damage the system in other ways.

Final step: Remove the daily cron entry

sudo rm /etc/cron.daily/popularity-contest