I installed 2.38 on deepin 15.1 using 64-bit Normal Install .deb File and it installed without any errors, and the program launches. But when I try to actually download anything, it stalls at the beginning where searching DHT flashes. It seems to be searching but never finds any peers or seeds--everything stays all zeros, things never advance.

As a first attempt at solving the problem I thought I would just uninstall and start over, but the uninstall fails. Any thoughts?

Just a guess, but did you check your firewall?  Maybe UDP is being blocked?  How do the charts in the Tixati DHT screen look?  Any incoming packets?

Works for me very well on Fedora 23 and a virtual Mint installation.