Removing gnome remotely

[thegrilledcheese]

I recently built a new machine and loaded ubuntu 9.04 server on it. I wanted to remain using CLI without gnome for a learning experience but I ended up installing gnome to get SSH setup which I was struggling with.

I now have SSH completely setup and running so I want to remove gnome desktop now. I don't want to have a reboot and be stuck with the graphical login and have to hook up a monitor and everything.

The server currently has gnome running. Can I log into server via SSH and uninstall gnome? What steps do I need? Should I reboot after? The only post I could find that was somewhat helpful is http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=772120

It says to:


sudo apt-get remove ubuntu-desktop

sudo apt-get remove xorg


The post is older so I want to make sure this is the correct commands for my system. Will doing this return the server to CLI only without any other steps needed? Will removing ubuntu-desktop and xorg remove the graphical login on the next reboot?

Thanks ahead of time!

[Vegan]

If you install TELNET, you can log in from remote, although this is not secure, its adequately simple to manage a machine.

sudo apt-get install telnetd

then you can login from port 23 which is the standard TELNET port.

Alternatives are available but are more work to setup as you need to setup SSL etc.

[thegrilledcheese]

So the commands listed will work to remove the gnome desktop and return the system to CLI only?

I'm not sure if your saying I HAVE to use telnet to make this work. Can it not be done through SSH?

[y@w]

Uh yeah, you definitely don't need telnet. Those commands should do it, though I've not done it myself.

[thegrilledcheese]

Should I stop gnome-desktop first? What is the command? I used "startx" to load it.

[HermanAB]

Change the runlevel to 3 then Gnome won't be running.