Uninstall php 7 in ubuntu 18 04

Question

I have a server with a PHP 5.6-based application running on it. However, I changed the server's operating system from Ubuntu 14.04 to 18.04 and, in the process, upgraded PHP to 7.2. I'm currently attempting to uninstall it, but I'm having trouble. 

I have run the command:

sudo apt-get remove php

and

sudo apt-get remove --purge php

Although it claims that PHP is not installed, when I execute PHP —version, I still see PHP version 7.

PHP 7.2.19-0ubuntu0.18.04.2 (cli) (built: Aug 12 2019 19:34:28) ( NTS ) Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group Zend Engine v3.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2018 Zend Technologies with Zend OPcache v7.2.19-0ubuntu0.18.04.2, Copyright (c) 1999-2018, by Zend Technologies

Can someone please help me with this?

Answer 1

This will uninstall all versions of PHP 7, including 7.0, 7.1, and other versions.

sudo apt-get purge php7.*
sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo apt-get autoremove

• apt/apt-get autoclean → cleans obsolete deb-packages, less than clean.
• apt/apt-get autoremove → removes orphaned packages which are no longer needed from the system, but do not purges them, use the --purge option together with the command for that.

Again install PHP using:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
sudo apt-get update

php7.0

sudo apt-get install php7.0

php7.1

sudo apt-get install php7.1

php7.2

sudo apt-get install php7.2

Then enable PHP 7.2:

user@test:~# sudo a2enmod php7.2
sudo service apache2 restart

Install all necessary extensions to ensure future error-free operation. Change the command to match your version. I used 7.2 because I had it installed.

sudo apt install php7.2-common php7.2-mysql php7.2-xml php7.2-xmlrpc php7.2-curl php7.2-gd php7.2-imagick php7.2-cli php7.2-dev php7.2-imap php7.2-mbstring php7.2-opcache php7.2-soap php7.2-zip php7.2-intl -y

I hope this helps you.