How to completely disable unity launcher in Ubuntu 16.04?

Question

I am using plank dock so I want to completely disable the unity launcher in ubuntu 16.04.

I used the autohide method and set the reveal pressure very high. But there are there are two problems with this method:

1. When I open unity dash by pressing the Super key, the launcher reveals.

2. When I minimize an application then the app icon pops out from left side of the hidden launcher.

I want to completely disable it.

Solution 1

Answer to my own question:

It can be done by editing the source code and remove the lines that are used to show the launcher.

I edited the files and recompiled the package. You don't have to reinstall the complete package, it can be done by replacing only one file.

libunityshell.so

Download the file with given link and replace the file /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/compiz/libunityshell.so with downloaded file.

Backup the file before replacing.

Set the launcher in autohide mode and restart your pc.

After restart :

• No launcher revealing when you move mouse pointer to left side.
• No launcher wake up while launching unity dash.
• No icon popped out from launcher while minimizing an application.

Means, this will completely disable the unity launcher.

This package is compiled in ubuntu 16.04 (x64) Unity 7.4.0. It works fine for me.

For other than Ubuntu 16.04 (x64) Unity 7.4.0 use the following link

Compile Unity without launcher

It is not working with unity 7.4.5

Solution 2

As far as I know, you can't, the best thing you can do is to go to System Settings > Appearance > Behavior here you can turn on 'Auto hide' for the launchpad, and then turn the sensitivity all the way down, now it almost never shows up unless you press super key.

Comments

[Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy]

Short answer: not possible unless you change Unity source code and recompile it. This has been asked thousands of times before, and the answer is the same

[user48949]

Sanjay Prajapat, I've been trying to do this for a long time and I'm really excited about this workaround you have provided, however, if you don't mind me asking, could you tell me whether or not this might work on Ubuntu 16.04.2? Forgive me if this is a noob's question, but I'm really not sure if there's any significant differences between 16.04 and 16.04.2 that could, maybe, lead to any kind of incompatibility. So, I'd better ask first. Thanks for your time.

[Darren Haynes]

Thank you, this worked perfectly on 16.04. Now no more annoying launcher popping out every time I hit the super key.

[burhanuddin abbas]

is it work on ubuntu 14.4 too ?

[Sanjay Prajapat]

@burhanuddinabbas , I don't know about ubuntu 14.04, but you can try. But make the backup of the original file , if anything went wrong then restore it.

[burhanuddin abbas]

@Sanjay Prajapat, its impossible to even try in ubuntu 14.04 because the directory you had specify is not even exist . specifically i would say that no compiz folder is available there

[burhanuddin abbas]

so Finally what i did is , i start searching libunityshell.so file from root directory and it is located inside /usr/lib/compiz/libunityshell.so

[burhanuddin abbas]

but i don't know the content of both directory files are same or not , should i give it a try ??

[Sanjay Prajapat]

@burhanuddinabbas , What is the architecture of your system and what's the version of unity ?

[burhanuddin abbas]

unity 7.2.6 and AMD64 architecture . Does it matter ??

[burhanuddin abbas]

@sanjay Prajapat , i replaced libunityshell.so file with this /usr/lib/compiz/libunityshell.so . Now my menu bar and top panel are also get faded with dash launcher. I have made a proper backup and did rollback too .But still problem persists ,can you Plz help me...

[Dariush Malek]

I tried it on Unity 7.5.0 in Ubuntu 17.10 and it disabled anything, the launcher, the panel, the dash, the whole nine yards. Can you please provide a file for newer version as well?

[burhanuddin abbas]

@Dariush , when menu , panel and launcher etc got disappear from my system , I brought back all stuff by enabling "Unity Plugin" from compiz-setting-manager. Now everything is same as it was earlier . I would be glad if sanjay Prajapat make this available for other ubuntu versions also

[Dariush Malek]

@abbas Actually it was already enabled.