How To Install graphviz on Ubuntu

Posted on April 1, 2023 (Last modified on May 20, 2023 )

3 minutes • 509 words

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install graphviz on Ubuntu.

What is `graphviz`

graphviz is:

Graph drawing addresses the problem of visualizing structural information by constructing geometric representations of abstract graphs and networks. Automatic generation of graph drawings has important applications in key technologies such as database design, software engineering, VLSI and network design and visual interfaces in other domains. Situations where these tools might be particularly useful include:

you would like to restructure a program and first need to understand the relationships between its types, procedures, and source files
you need to find the bottlenecks in an Internet backbone - not only individual links, but their relationships
you’re debugging a protocol or microarchitecture represented as a finite state machine and need to figure out how a certain error state arises
you would like to browse a database schema, knowledge base, or distributed program represented graphically
you would like to see an overview of a collection of linked documents
you would like to discover patterns and communities of interest in a database of telephone calls or e-mail messages

This package contains the command-line tools.

There are three methods to install graphviz on Ubuntu. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install graphviz Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install graphviz using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install graphviz

Install graphviz Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install graphviz using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install graphviz

Install graphviz 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 graphviz using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install graphviz

How To Uninstall graphviz on Ubuntu

To uninstall only the graphviz package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove graphviz

Uninstall graphviz And Its Dependencies

To uninstall graphviz and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove graphviz

Remove graphviz Configurations and Data

To remove graphviz configuration and data from Ubuntu we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge graphviz

Remove graphviz configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove graphviz configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge graphviz

Dependencies

graphviz have the following dependencies:

References

graphviz website

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install graphviz package on Ubuntu using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.