Remove Gnome/Unity

[Bynw]

I have a question as I am playing around with different desktops. I currently have Unity as I am running Ubuntu 11.04 and not really sure I want to continue with it. I did like Gnome but may decide not to go there either as I try out other desktop environments.

So can I fully remove Unity/Gnome from my Ubuntu installation if I choose to use another Desktop Environment?


Thanks!

[bulldog]

I have a question as I am playing around with different desktops. I currently have Unity as I am running Ubuntu 11.04 and not really sure I want to continue with it. I did like Gnome but may decide not to go there either as I try out other desktop environments.

So can I fully remove Unity/Gnome from my Ubuntu installation if I choose to use another Desktop Environment?


Thanks!

Unity is a Shell on top of Gnome,if you install Gnome-Shell [if that is what you mean by Gnome]Unity will break and yes,you can remove Unity and compiz from there.

However if you want to discover other DE's,I would just install them and try them out.
If you find one to keep,I rather do a fresh install with that DE,instead of removing parts of gnome and unity.

Removing parts of Gnome and or Unity to get to another DE,is a rather sure way to break your system,I wouldn't go there if I where you.

[mike555]

I would try different ones and pick one (like xubuntu -xfce) then just install it new overwriting the old one.
backing up important stuff to a usb stick first of course.

[Copper Bezel]

I would try different ones and pick one (like xubuntu -xfce) then just install it new overwriting the old one.
backing up important stuff to a usb stick first of course.

Possibly, but Bynw asked about desktop environments, not distributions. He might not want to do a new full install.

However, just installing another DE and trying it out is a fairly straightforward thing, and you don't really need to remove anything, like Gnome or the Unity parts, to stop using them. If you don't run that session, its parts won't load. There is the possibility of conflicts between DEs in certain bits of software or settings, but it's less a problem if you only ultimately intend to use one of them. (Switching between can cause problems generally in that some settings will follow you, and some won't, across DEs.)