Can i remove Unity and Ubuntu-Desktop and still get release updates/upgrades?

Question

I am running Ubuntu 15.10 but using the Gnome 3 environment.

I am unable to use Unity because it appears that the Gnome shell breaks Unity and it no longer displays if I start an Ubuntu session.

So, is it safe to remove Unity and Ubuntu-Desktop and still receive Ubuntu updates and new release upgrades for the Gnome3 desktop environment?

ie, when the next LTS is released can I still upgrade the kernel, packages and Gnome shell to the newer versions or do I need to keep Unity and Ubuntu-Desktop installed?

Not an issue to leave it there, but I do not want to break my system if Gnome Shell is somehow conflicting with Unity environment.

Thanks

Solution

Installing Gnome 3 in Ubuntu 15.10

Video Instruction HERE

Replacing Unity with Gnome 3 Instruction HERE

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-gnome-desktop ubuntu-gnome-default-settings

sudo apt-get install gnome-documents gnome-boxes

(When prompted, select GDM as the default display manager.)

sudo apt-get remove ubuntu-settings

sudo apt-get remove unity

sudo apt-get remove overlay-scrollbar*

(Reboot, when logging in check Gnome desktop environment has been selected in the login screen.)

When removing Unity, 6,5 MB of packages were removed, as expected ubuntu-desktop got removed. Network Manager still there, which is good - serg

ubuntu-desktop is a meta package, the system will be fine without it - uninstalling it simply uninstalls that meta package -Mateo

So ubuntu-gnome-desktop installed and unity and ubuntu-desktop are out, everything works fine. I suppose the answer is "it's pretty much safe" -Serg

• Thanks to serg
• Thanks to Mateo

Comments

[mikewhatever]

It should be safe. Other derivatives (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, etc) don't have those packages, but do get both updates and release upgrades. Obviously, you'll have to deal with any "my kernel" yourself.

[pst007x]

Thanks. Sorry, the Kernel I am using is the release Kernel, I haven't manually upgraded. So am I right in saying that when the next LTS packages are released in 16.04, my system should still receive the upgrades without any issue, if I have removed Unity and Ubuntu-Desktop?

[Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy]

I wouldn't recommend that , since there are a lot of packages listed as dependencies, and they will be gone with ubuntu-desktop being removed

[Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy]

I've an Ubuntu 15.10 virtual machine installed. I'll try to remove Unity and will report back with what happens

[Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy]

OK, so I've ran sudo apt-get remove unity. 6,5 MB of packages were removed, as expected ubuntu-desktop got removed. Network Manager still there, which is good. I've tried going to lightdm , but it doesn't show gnome-shell as one of selections, even though apt reports gnome-shell as installed. I'm going to run apt-get install ubuntu-gnome-desktop. That should be sufficient to replace ubuntu-desktop without actual install

[Mateo]

ubuntu-desktop is a meta package, the system will be fine without it - uninstalling it simply uninstalls that meta package

[Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy]

So ubuntu-gnome-desktop installed and unity and ubuntu-desktop are out, everything works fine. I suppose the answer is "it's pretty much safe"

[pst007x]

Thanks, that is very helpful. If you write that as an answer I can mark this closed. Appreciated.