Pure Xubuntu on Raring

[slickymaster]

I've noticed that Raring comes packed with a ton of gnome packages and I'm wondering about the practicability and safety, in what system's stability is concerned, of doing something like "Getting Back to a Pure Xubuntu".

[grahammechanical]

As far as I can see that tutorial is a kind of reverse engineering. Install Xubuntu. Add Ubuntu Desktop or one of the other desktops). Note the packages installed. Mark these as the packages to remove to get back to a "pure" Xubuntu.

These removal commands were created based on what Ubuntu, Kubuntu, etc. packages were added to a default Xubuntu installation.

I suggest that there is a big difference between 12.10 and 13.04. To answer your question you must re-run the experiment on a "pure" Xubuntu Raring Ringtail. I am one of those people who think that "pure" Xubuntu is Xubuntu installed from a Xubuntu ISO image. If I wanted to try out Xubuntu or any of the others I would install them on another partition and test from there. Right now I have Ubuntu Kylin on a USB stick. I do not think it sensible to install other desktops over a "pure" install of a Ubuntu flavour.

Regards.

[ventrical]

As far as I can see that tutorial is a kind of reverse engineering. Install Xubuntu. Add Ubuntu Desktop or one of the other desktops). Note the packages installed. Mark these as the packages to remove to get back to a "pure" Xubuntu.



I suggest that there is a big difference between 12.10 and 13.04. To answer your question you must re-run the experiment on a "pure" Xubuntu Raring Ringtail. I am one of those people who think that "pure" Xubuntu is Xubuntu installed from a Xubuntu ISO image. If I wanted to try out Xubuntu or any of the others I would install them on another partition and test from there. Right now I have Ubuntu Kylin on a USB stick. I do not think it sensible to install other desktops over a "pure" install of a Ubuntu flavour.

Regards.

In my experience there is always a chance of interfection of depends, meaning that getting back to a pure Xubuntu is almost impossible (is possible if you are willing to spend the downtime cleaning it up). This also goes for other distros or flavours. If I have Ubuntu (unity default) and install Xubuntu-desktop it will interfect Unity, and vis a versa. Kubuntu is especially problematic in both scenarios. It will completely interfect a Unity default install . Cairo -doc has also regressed in this area.. especially with Quantal and Raring.

[slickymaster]

As far as I can see that tutorial is a kind of reverse engineering. Install Xubuntu. Add Ubuntu Desktop or one of the other desktops). Note the packages installed. Mark these as the packages to remove to get back to a "pure" Xubuntu
.../
/...
I suggest that there is a big difference between 12.10 and 13.04. To answer your question you must re-run the experiment on a "pure" Xubuntu Raring Ringtail. I am one of those people who think that "pure" Xubuntu is Xubuntu installed from a Xubuntu ISO image. If I wanted to try out Xubuntu or any of the others I would install them on another partition and test from there. Right now I have Ubuntu Kylin on a USB stick. I do not think it sensible to install other desktops over a "pure" install of a Ubuntu flavour.
Regards.

I agree with you, it's a sort of reverse engineering.

But, I have a pure Xubuntu Raring Ringtail (installed from a Xubuntu ISO image), running on a VirtualBox, but nevertheless after removing some gnome packages, when I run

dpkg --get-selections | grep gnome

I get this much

gir1.2-gnomebluetooth-1.0   install
gnome-accessibility-themes   install
gnome-bluetooth     install
gnome-calculator    install
gnome-control-center    install
gnome-control-center-data   install
gnome-desktop-data    install
gnome-desktop3-data    install
gnome-icon-theme    install
gnome-icon-theme-symbolic   install
gnome-keyring     install
gnome-menus     install
gnome-session-bin    install
gnome-settings-daemon    install
gnome-system-tools    install
gnome-time-admin    install
gnome-user-guide    install
gnome-user-share    install
gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs:i386   install
language-pack-gnome-en    install
language-pack-gnome-en-base   install
language-selector-gnome    install
libgnome-bluetooth11    install
libgnome-control-center1   install
libgnome-desktop-3-4    install
libgnome-keyring-common    install
libgnome-keyring0:i386    install
libgnome-menu-3-0    install
libgnomekbd-common    install
libgnomekbd8     install
libgnomevfs2-0:i386    install
libgnomevfs2-common    install
libgnomevfs2-extra:i386    install
libp11-kit-gnome-keyring:i386   install
libpam-gnome-keyring:i386   install
libsoup-gnome2.4-1:i386    install
network-manager-gnome    install
network-manager-pptp-gnome   install
policykit-1-gnome    install
python-gnomekeyring    install
system-config-printer-gnome

[slickymaster]

In my experience there is always a chance of interfection of depends, meaning that getting back to a pure Xubuntu is almost impossible (is possible if you are willing to spend the downtime cleaning it up). This also goes for other distros or flavours. If I have Ubuntu (unity default) and install Xubuntu-desktop it will interfect Unity, and vis a versa. Kubuntu is especially problematic in both scenarios. It will completely interfect a Unity default install . Cairo -doc has also regressed in this area.. especially with Quantal and Raring.

That was my primary intention/idea, even though the time I would spent on trying to achieve it. But then the doubt cross my mind if doing it I would completely mess up the system due to the possibility of interference of depends.
That was the reason that led me to this thread. I thought that maybe someone had tried it and I was just searching for some feedback on the attempt.

I think my question is dully answered. Thank you both on your considerations.

[vasa1]

I agree with you, it's a sort of reverse engineering.

But, I have a pure Xubuntu Raring Ringtail (installed from a Xubuntu ISO image), running on a VirtualBox, but nevertheless after removing some gnome packages, when I run

dpkg --get-selections | grep gnome

I get this much
...

If I may ... Several GNOME packages are used by both "pure" Xubuntu and "pure" Lubuntu because they're most suited for the job or there's nothing lighter available.
For example, both Xubuntu and Lubuntu come with evince and network-manager-gnome, as does Ubuntu. But neither Xubuntu nor Lubuntu use gnome-terminal or gnome-screenshot. Instead, they have their own (presumably) lighter versions.

[slickymaster]

If I may ... Several GNOME packages are used by both "pure" Xubuntu and "pure" Lubuntu because they're most suited for the job or there's nothing lighter available.
For example, both Xubuntu and Lubuntu come with GNOME's Evince, as does Ubuntu. But neither Xubuntu nor Lubuntu use gnome-terminal or gnome-screenshot. Instead, they have their own (presumably) lighter versions.

Exactly. And that's why I was wondering if anyone had tried it and thus providing some pointers concerning on what packages you really shouldn't mess with, and the ones you could freely remove.