How can unity-panel-service be disabled?

Question

From the unity-panel-service manpages:

DESCRIPTION  
    The  unity-panel-service  program  is  normally  started automatically by the Unity
    shell (which gets started as a compiz module) and is used to draw panels which  can
    then be used for the global menu, or to hold indicators.

How can the unity-panel-service be non-automatically started abnormally?
In other words, how is it arbitrarily manually started and/or stopped?

The manpage implication is that this can be done without stopping the Unity shell.

This answer seems promising:

Is it possible to restart the unity panel without restarting compiz?

but ... not. The process can be killed from System Monitor but it restarts automatically.

references:

• https://askubuntu.com/questions/184589/how-can-menu-bars-that-require-a-right-click-be-activated
• How do I enable or disable the global application menu?

Solution

I used this solution to disable automatically starting unity-service-panel from starting. But you should be clear, unity-panel-service is not the panel on top bar, but it provides a service so that indicators can run on the panel.

Solution:

1. Move the unity-panel-service file to somewhere else

   sudo mv /usr/lib/unity/unity-panel-service ~
   

   This will move the file to your home folder.

2. Now Logout using Ctrl-Alt-Del shortcut.

3. Login

The service is now disabled. If you want to verify it, run ps -u | grep unity in a terminal.

To revert the change, move the file back into the original location.