cga wrote:
Well.. I've already done this a couple of times - once w/
$ apt-get remove --purge gnome
or something similar..
This doesn't remove all the packages which make up GNOME, it removes
just the "gnome" package, which depends on things like gdm,
gnome-panel, gnome-session, etc, which make up the GNOME desktop. It
removes the root of the dependency tree but leaves all the trunk,
branches and leaves...
Furthermore (with regard to your removing xserver-xfree86 doesn't
remove any of the UI software on your system because there is no
dependency from xlib on an X server - this is because you can have all
of this software installed and run forwarded over a network, so no X
server is required locally.
To remove all GNOME components, "apt-get remove --purge" a package
which almost all of them depend on, such as libgtk2.0-0, or even more
aggressively, libglib2.0-0, and then apt will also offer to remove
everything else that depends on these packages. To remove everything
that uses X, "apt-get remove --purge libx11-6" will have a similar
effect. Be aware, however, that these commands will remove far more
than just GNOME, so you should copy the list of packages that apt will
be removing, and then you can paste the list back into a command like
"xargs apt-get install <<EOF" to install them again (enter EOF or
Ctrl+D to indicate you've finished entering the packages).
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Rob