removing unity and gnome session managers

[bluekuma]

Hi all!
I'd like to remove unity, gnome and all that, and just keep xfce4 (already installed).
Even better, it'd be wonderful to have my computer boot into a login shell and let me run startx if and when I want a graphical session.

Now I tried with some things along the lines of "apt-get remove unity ubuntu-desktop gnome-session" but it turns out it's too naive a method. I didn't get the splash screen on boot but I still had to press CTRL-ALT-F1 to get to a login shell.

Searched and googled here and there and couldn't find a definitive explanation.

Thank you for your kindness!

[debodas]

http://ubuntublog.org/how-to-remove-unity-desktop-in-ubuntu-12-04.htm Should do the trick for uninstalling unity.

[mringer]

http://ubuntublog.org/how-to-remove-unity-desktop-in-ubuntu-12-04.htm Should do the trick for uninstalling unity.

When I clicked on this reference, I was redirected to

http://ubuntublog.org

and searching for "unity" on this site did not find anything. I tried
copying and pasting the full address into my browser: same result.

[grahammechanical]

I think that it would have been better to install Xubuntu. You would get a more stable operating system than the one you will get by removing stuff.

You can also experiment using Recovery mode. The Resume option will get you to a log in screen.

The Root option will get you to a root shell. But the file system will only be in Read mode.

To get a file system with Read and Write capabilities, select Fail Safe mode, then press Esc to back out of fail safe mode, Now select the Root option.

You might find that startx does not do what you want. When I tried it just now I did not get to a GUI. It is possible to edit the Grub configuration file and where you see the line that says "quiet splash" add the word "recovery" and now you will always boot into Recovery mode.

Regards.

[ibjsb4]

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/purexubuntu

But I also prefer a fresh install like "graham" said.

[NikTh]

I think that it would have been better to install Xubuntu. You would get a more stable operating system than the one you will get by removing stuff.

Agreed 100%

[Cheesehead]

Hi all!
I'd like to remove unity, gnome and all that, and just keep xfce4 (already installed).
Even better, it'd be wonderful to have my computer boot into a login shell and let me run startx if and when I want a graphical session.


You have a couple issues here.

I recommend fixing your startx problem first. Do you have any idea how you broke it?

Adding/removing desktop environments is not very difficult, but it can be time-consuming. The easy way to start is to do an apt-cache depends ubuntu-desktop , and compare that to the results of apt-cache depends xubuntu-desktop. Anything in ubuntu-desktop that is missing from xubuntu-desktop can be safely removed. Do the same process for the metapackage you used to install Gnome desktop.