How to completely restore default desktop environment in ubuntu 14.04 lts after installing and removing gnome desktop environment.

Question

I got a mix of icons and windows display between gnome and unity. I have follow the steps in other forums with that explain how to remove gnome and restore unity, but that did not work as I expect.

This are some of the forums I followed with no success:

How do I reset my Unity configuration?

http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2014/04/reset-unity-and-compiz-settings-in-ubuntu-14-04/

Unity default settings

Experimenting I seem to have mixed up Unity and Gnome desktop 3 and would like only one of them

Solution

Completely remove the GNOME desktop and reinstall the Unity desktop from a virtual console.

Boot the PC - on login screen press Ctrl+Alt+F1 - enter user name and password - execute :

sudo apt-get purge gnome
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop  
sudo reboot  

Although restarting the system isn't strictly necessary, it nevertheless is recommended to do so.

Comments

[Scott Stensland]

is this still valid on stock 16.04/16.10 ?

[cl-netbox]

@ScottStensland Generally spoken, yes, it should still work ... but do I recommend to go this way ? No, because some things might not work 100 % perfectly afterwards - I generally recommend to install and use only that one desktop environment which comes as default (Ubuntu with Unity or Ubuntu GNOME with GNOME). :)

[Suncatcher]

@cl-netbox, and what about 17.04? :) I agree that doing such things is not cool, but sometimes Unity is messed after such experiments and need to be restored.

[Suncatcher]

BTW, apt-get install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop command helped, without purging GNOME.