How To Install pinentry-curses on Ubuntu 18.04
Introduction
In this tutorial we learn how to install pinentry-curses on Ubuntu 18.04.
What is pinentry-curses
pinentry-curses is:
This package contains a program that allows for secure entry of PINs or pass phrases. That means it tries to take care that the entered information is not swapped to disk or temporarily stored anywhere. This functionality is particularly useful for entering pass phrases when using encryption software such as GnuPG or e-mail clients using the same. It uses an open protocol and is therefore not tied to particular software.
The program contained in this package implements a PIN entry dialog using the curses tool kit, meaning that it is useful for users working in text mode without the X Window System. There are sibling packages that implement PIN entry dialogs that use an X tool kit. If you install any of the graphical packages then this package is not necessary because the sibling packages automatically fall back to text mode if X is not active.
There are three methods to install pinentry-curses on Ubuntu 18.04. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.
Install pinentry-curses Using apt-get
Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.
sudo apt-get update
After updating apt database, We can install pinentry-curses using apt-get by running the following command:
sudo apt-get -y install pinentry-curses
Install pinentry-curses Using apt
Update apt database with apt using the following command.
sudo apt update
After updating apt database, We can install pinentry-curses using apt by running the following command:
sudo apt -y install pinentry-curses
Install pinentry-curses Using aptitude
If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.
sudo aptitude update
After updating apt database, We can install pinentry-curses using aptitude by running the following command:
sudo aptitude -y install pinentry-curses
How To Uninstall pinentry-curses on Ubuntu 18.04
To uninstall only the pinentry-curses package we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get remove pinentry-curses
Uninstall pinentry-curses And Its Dependencies
To uninstall pinentry-curses and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu 18.04, we can use the command below:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove pinentry-curses
Remove pinentry-curses Configurations and Data
To remove pinentry-curses configuration and data from Ubuntu 18.04 we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y purge pinentry-curses
Remove pinentry-curses configuration, data, and all of its dependencies
We can use the following command to remove pinentry-curses configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge pinentry-curses
References
Summary
In this tutorial we learn how to install pinentry-curses package on Ubuntu 18.04 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.
