Take the 2-minute tour ×
Super User is a question and answer site for computer enthusiasts and power users. It's 100% free, no registration required.

This is the opposite of this question. Basically I've been using Ubuntu for a while but decided to give KDE a shot so I went through the process of getting the latest KDE installed. I'm very impressed with KDE and the Kwin window manager seems like a better WM than Compiz which is what I was using for Gnome (sure that's an oppinion).

This was an Ubuntu Jaunty install. So how do I go about removing the Gnome desktop? Is there an automated way similar to what my previous question covered?

UPDATE: Should there be any packages I should NOT remove in the process?

share|improve this question
add comment

5 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

The purge command is a good start. In addition, you probably want to remove all the dependent libraries that were installed only to get Gnome. You can do that via autoremove in apt-get or, if you use aptitude, it should happen automatically.

Note that the purge command has an oddity: it purges items you remove explicitly, but only removes any automatically removed dependent packages. (That is, if you enter aptitude purge foo-bar and fizzbuzz gets automatically removed at the same time, foo-bar is purged but fizzbuzz is only removed.) So a good way to recursively purge is this:

aptitude purge foo-bar && aptitude purge ~c

The ~c search in aptitude finds any packages that were removed but not purged in the first removal.

One final note, if you haven't been using aptitude, always check its output the first time you try to run it. Don't simply say "Yes" to whatever it wants to do. Depending on what package manager you've been using, you may find that aptitude thinks some things should be autoremoved, but you prefer to keep them.

share|improve this answer
add comment

I think the simplest way to do this is to remove ubuntu-desktop and install kubuntu-desktop.

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop
sudo apt-get --purge remove ubuntu-desktop

You can also just uninstall gnome-desktop-environment instead of ubuntu-desktop.

share|improve this answer
add comment

Well, you cant totally remove Gnome because, many common programs on Ubuntu (read Firefox) use Gnome Libraries.

share|improve this answer
add comment

Ubuntu has a built-in tool for changing the type of system you are running.

$ sudo tasksel

This tool lets you check the box next to the type of system you want (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu, Ubuntu Server) and then confirm to have the tool re-configure your system, removing and adding packages as needed.

share|improve this answer
add comment

I'm not 100% but I'm fairly sure the equivalent meta package is gnome-desktop

That's right... I removed gnome by this:

sudo apt-get remove gnome-*
share|improve this answer
add comment

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.
{"cc_re__cc_re__cc_by_sa_3_0": ["        <li><a href=\"http://area51.stackexchange.com\" title=\"proposing new sites in the Stack Exchange network\">Area 51</a></li>\r\n                        <li><a href=\"http://careers.stackoverflow.com\">Stack Overflow Careers</a></li>\r\n                    \r\n                </ol>\r\n            </td>\r\n    </tr>\r\n</table>\r\n                </div>\r\n            </div>\r\n\r\n            <div id=\"copyright\">\r\n                site design / logo &#169; 2014 stack exchange inc; user contributions licensed under <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/\" rel=\"license\">cc by-sa 3.0</a> \r\n                with <a href=\"http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/06/attribution-required/\" rel=\"license\">attribution required</a>\r\n            </div>\r\n            <div id=\"svnrev\">\r\n                rev 2014.7.10.1698\r\n            </div>\r\n            \r\n        </div>\r\n    </div>\r\n    <noscript>\r\n        <div id=\"noscript-warning\">Super User works best with JavaScript enabled<img src=\"http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-c1rF4kxgLUzNc.gif\" alt=\"\" class=\"dno\"></div>\r\n    </noscrip"], "copyright__copyright__copyright": ["ave the tool re-configure your system, removing and adding packages as needed.\n\nshare|improve this answer\nadd comment\n\nI'm not 100% but I'm fairly sure the equivalent meta package is gnome-desktop\n\nThat's right... I removed gnome by this:\n\nsudo apt-get remove gnome-*\nshare|improve this answer\nadd comment\n\nYour Answer\n\n\u00a0\ndiscard\n\nBy posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.\n\nNot the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question."]}