This is how I removed logging from Ubuntu 12.04

Waiting for next distro hop ... this weekend

Update 4:


I will try arch linux or kubuntu as I dont like Ubuntu with boring menus after installing lxde (see below)



Update 3:

I installed lxde from synaptic (after nautilus did not work or search did not from ubuntu after zeitgeist removal) and this is how my screen looks after logging out from unity, selecting session as lxde, looks like lubuntu,

Update 2:


Well I forcefully deleted libzeitgeist from synaptic (anyway manual deletion of zeitgeist does same as stopping good old nautilus from launching, I wanted zeitgeist formally removed from synaptic) and accepted all the s/w which needs to be removed to be removed, sorry I dont want you logging s/w





Update 1:


After removing zeitgeist manually ( explained below) from ubuntu nautilus does not work, well it is expected, I will install thunar or maybe try Xubuntu, ha ha




If you dare proceed further



Before Update (manually removing logging s/w):

Well, speed of Ubuntu 12.04 is good.

But I did not like this privacy settings in Ubuntu 12.04 which logs every user action. Much is said in net about this privacy. There is option to disable logging but do I trust it? I am doubtful

The s/w which is used for logging is zeitgeist. It is neutral like most of the   s/w neither good nor bad. But it could be used to track users and log activity to server. I did not like this

Here is a weblog of what I did to stop logging completely out of ubuntu and think it may help someone using ubuntu and wants to remove shady logging

To stop this logging completely, I removed zeitgeist from synaptic/apt-get

Then tried removing libzeitgeist and it warned me of direly to remove file manager ...

So I went this approach

First searched all running processes and stopped zeitgeist daemon

sudo ps ax | grep zeit

Then killed all processes with name zeitgeist with pid using sudo kill <pid>

Then deleted all zeitgeist files from my system as super user


To do that I did the following




updated all locate indexes

 sudo updatedb




searched for zeit*

 locate zeit

removed local and cache from current user

  sudo rm -rf  .local/share/zeitgeist/

  sudo rm -rf .cache/zeitgeist/

updated db


sudo updatedb


then searched zeit and removed all files as super user, well now there is no stupid zeitgeist or its shared objects unless it is bundled statically with some s/w. Even then I could create a proxy server, firewall and filter all unwanted output. Till ubuntu tries to build statically this logging s/w I will enjoy, then I can go with firewall rules allowing only the web traffic which I make

Or I may switch to arch


Till then here are the command summary I followed to deweed logging s/w



  204  locate zeit
  205  cd /etc/xdg/autostart/
  206  ls
  207  sudo rm zeitgeist-datahub.desktop 
  208  cd ..
  209  cd bash_completion.d/
  210  ls
  211  sudo rm -rf zeitgeist-daemon 
  212  sync
  213  cd 
  214  locate zeit
  215  sudo rm -rf /usr/lib/libzeitgeist-1.0.so.1
  216  sudo rm -rf /usr/lib/libzeitgeist-1.0.so.1.1.4 
  217  sudo rm -rf /usr/lib/gedit/plugins/libzeitgeistplugin.so 
  218  sudo rm -rf /usr/lib/gedit/plugins/zeitgeist.plugin 
  219  sudo rm -rf /usr/lib/totem/plugins/zeitgeist-dp/
  220  sudo rm -rf /usr/share/doc/libzeitgeist-1.0-1/
  221  sync


After removal checked if there is any zeitgeist files left


  222  sudo updatedb
  223  locate zeit
  224  sudo reboot
  225  sudo ps ax | grep zeit
  226  history

Iteration 1: pulse
Iteration 2: unity
Iteration 3: zeitgeist

Iteration 4: run ... fast = Distro Hop

Seers of wisdom if only you know what I mean!! :)