[11.10] Removing Unity installs MORE unwanted packages

[stlu]

Hi,

I'm trying to remove unity from a ubuntu desktop, and later install MATE.

I tried to remove the following packages:

For 11.10
(per http://askubuntu.com/questions/6302/how-can-you-remove-unity)

sudo apt-get remove unity unity-2d-places unity-2d unity-2d-panel unity-2d-spread unity-asset-pool unity-services unity-lens-files unity-lens-music unity-lens-applications gir1.2-unity-4.0 unity-common indicator-sound indicator-power indicator-appmenu libindicator6 indicator-application evolution-indicator indicator-datetime indicator-messages libnux-1.0-0 nuxtools
And apt-get agreed to removed them, but it also wanted to install about 15 more packages, relating to Gnome session.

Then, I ran apt-get remove to remove those 15 unwanted packages, and apt-get agreed but wanted to install 30+ packages relating to KDE??? (100+ MB)


How can I get rid of Unity without all these extra packages installing?



See pastebin: http://pastebin.com/2JU2BUtq



Heres a rough scheme of the problem:

$ sudo apt-get remove <packages from 11.10 tutorial>
...
The following extra packages will be installed:
<... unwanted package set A ~15 packages>
The following packages will be REMOVED:
<packages from 11.10 tutorial>
...




So I try to now remove those annoying extras:

$ sudo apt-get remove <... unwanted package set A ~15 packages>
...
The following extra packages will be installed:
<... unwanted package set B ~100 packages!!! >
The following packages will be REMOVED:
<... unwanted package set A ~15 packages>
are you sure you want to continue[y/n] no way!

so there you have it in a nutshell. I just want the original packages gone.

[stlu]

ActionParsnip on freenode IRC #ubuntu suggested that I remove xorg, and then 'autoremove' any higher-level dependencies.

Well that would have ruined any newbies install but I can't be sure it was a malicious suggestion.

In either case, running "apt-get autoremove" without xorg shows it has 0 to remove anyway, so thanks for bogus advise, Parsnip.

Anyone with real advice?

[kansasnoob]

Removing Xorg is absolutely a horrible idea!

Beyond that 11.10 (Oneiric) is only supported until April of this year so you might want to consider installing Precise (12.04.1) before making a bunch of modifications.

There is no need to remove Unity or any other packages to get MATE working in either 11.10 or 12.04.1, just follow the instructions here:

http://wiki.mate-desktop.org/download#ubuntu

You would then of course need to log out and then choose the preferred session when logging back in.

I personally prefer this to MATE but everyone has their own preferences:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1966370

[grahammechanical]

The apt utility is trying to prevent you from making the OS unusable. If you remove the User Interface you need something to replace it with otherwise the OS becomes unusable.

So, you remove Unity and apt wants to replace it with Gnome session. You remove Gnome session and the stupid Apt utility wants to replace it with KDE.

Try installing the Mate desktop before removing Unity, Gnome Session, KDE, or whatever Apt has installed for you.

Regards.