Re: Uninstalling Gnome

[Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk>]

On Tue 29 Nov 2016 at 17:45:39 +0000, Joe wrote:

> On Tue, 29 Nov 2016 16:12:52 +0000
> Rodolfo Medina <rodolfo.medina@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Patrick Bartek <nemommxiv@gmail.com> writes:
> > 
> > > On Tue, 29 Nov 2016 09:11:37 +0000 Rodolfo Medina
> > > <rodolfo.medina@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >  
> > >> Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> writes:
> > >>   
> > >> > On Mon 28 Nov 2016 at 21:44:00 +0000, Rodolfo Medina wrote:
> > >> >  
> > >> >> When I freshly installed Debian on my present system, I chose
> > >> >> Gnome as my Desktop manager, then I switched to Openbox.  To
> > >> >> free space, now I want to remove all those Gnome packages that I
> > >> >> haven't used any more but am not sure what of them I may delete
> > >> >> without perturbing the system.  How can I know? More
> > >> >> in general, is there a way to know what packages one is not
> > >> >> using and so can be
> > >> >> removed?  
> > >> >
> > >> > apt-get purge gnome gnome-shell
> > >> > apt-get autoremove
> > >> >
> > >> > And go from there with 'dpkg -l'.  
> > >> 
> > >> 
> > >> Thanks.  But, my question is: how can I be sure and safe that doing
> > >> so will not perturbing my system?  
> > >
> > > A few years ago, I attempted to entirely remove GNOME from my
> > > system. I had switched to the window manager Openbox and no longer
> > > needed GNOME and all its parts taking up valuble hard drive space.
> > > It proved impossible (or impractical) to do. GNOME lists OS parts
> > > among others, lots of others, as dependencies.  Most of its
> > > utilities do the same. GNOME is quite invasive.  So, a general
> > > "remove" or "purge" gnome, etc. would end up removing most of the
> > > OS rendering it useless. Even trying to uninstall its utilities and
> > > apps would result in similar situation, a broken system
> > >
> > > To make a long story short, I eventually ended up reinstalling the
> > > OS without any desktop environment, terminal only, then adding X,
> > > the window manager, etc. It was the only easy way I found to be
> > > totally GNOMEless.  
> > 
> > 
> > I wonder if it's possible to provide Debian a set A of packages and
> > say: `please install these and only these and remove all the other
> > packages present on the disk except the ones from which some of A
> > depends.'  This would be equivalent of reinstalling everything as
> > reported by Patrick.  Do you think it would be possible?
> > 
> Possible, but probably not off the shelf, or someone would have
> suggested it by now.

Is "remove all the other packages present on the disk except the ones from which some of A
depends" a serious desire? That would remove the kernel.

> As I said to begin my first reply, the only way to do a proper job is
> to start again from scratch, with a minimal text system, no DE, then
> add the GUI software of your choice, and your applications. 

I agree with the sentiment and the technical simplicity here. However,
to get to the same state from a running system isn't too hard and quite
satisfying.

apt-get purge gnome gnome-*
apt-get --purge autoremove
apt-ge purge $(deborphan)

The final two commands being repeated as often as necessary.

'dpkg -l' will tell you what else you need to remove to get very close
to a d-i basic install.

Tested? Of course.

-- 
Brian.



 
> And you probably want sudo, which as far as I know, is still not
> installed by default.
> 
> -- 
> Joe
>