How to remove the graphical user interface?

Question

Okay my question is that, I want to run a heavy application, on a Virtual Machine (VirtualBox) with just 2 GB RAM (Windows 7 32Bit Host has 4 GB, 3.5 GB effective). Initially I thought of installing Ubuntu Server 12.04.1, which doesn't come with a GUI, so I thought it would be efficient in performance, but I have only Ubuntu 12.04 Desktop.

My question is, is it possible to remove the GUI parts in Ubuntu 12.04 Desktop (Not Server), keeping only the core OS, after installation in a virtual machine?

Or, is there anyway to improve the performance of the OS?

If you need more information, I am ready to provide.

I don't want the GUI or anything, even a small terminal window is fine for me, I can access files through FTP.

Solution 1

It is not needed to remove the GUI (unity, lightdm, compiz, etc.) from the system.

You can leave it and just make your default boot as a text mode and if once you need a GUI you can restore it easily.

open /etc/default/grub as root in your favourite text editor, for example sudo vi /etc/default/grub And change the line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" To GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="text" and update Grub.sudo update-grub Your system will then always boot to text mode.

If you once want to use GUI you can easly start lightdm, the GUI:

sudo service lightdm start

Here are some hints that you may use to increase performance of your system.

Solution 2

None of these answers answers the user's question.

• Advising how to disable the GUI is not removing it.
• Advising how to use a different GUI is not removing it.
• Advising to use a different Linux distro is not removing it.

The commands to remove the GUI are:

sudo apt-get remove ubuntu-desktop
sudo apt-get autoremove

This will remove the Ubuntu Desktop meta-package and all associated packages.

If you're going to answer the question, answer the question.

Solution 3

Alternatively you can install openbox, one of the most lightweight window managers available:

sudo apt-get install openbox openbox-themes obconf obmenu

This automatically adds an openbox session to the login menu. And this is its GUI:

Yep, that's it. Nothing more but a right-click menu. A GUI with an incredibly low RAM footprint, just like you want it.

Comments

[Praveen Kumar Purushothaman]

+1 for quick reply. Let me try it out and see if that works! :) Also, will this perform better than having GUI and running it?

[Admin]

take your time and post results please

[Praveen Kumar Purushothaman]

I have GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash". Should I use "text" or just text?

[Praveen Kumar Purushothaman]

Looks cool, but I am more and more interested in removing the interface itself, coz, I wanna run some huge heavy app, which I can access using my Windows host. :)

[Admin]

Better to use "text".

[Praveen Kumar Purushothaman]

Awesome, got the command screen version just like Server. I just need to meddle with my IP Config and Network Proxy. See you then. Thanks a lot! :)

[Praveen Kumar Purushothaman]

So, now how do I shut down the system? When I am in the login screen, can I just power off the system?

[Eliah Kagan]

@maythux Though halt and poweroff are usually equivalent, arguably it is preferable to use sudo shutdown -P now or sudo poweroff to shut down and power off the system.

[edwin]

The accepted answer gives pointers in a recommended direction. Just answering sudo apt-get remove stuff could cause more harm to the OP than you might think. Please avoid adding reasons to why you've added the answer, that is off-topic and is better off as comment.

[Praveen Kumar Purushothaman]

I agree with @edwin. :)

[bugZero]

if i want to enable it what should i do?

[Eliah Kagan]

This method may or may not work: often packages that provide the GUI are depended on by other packages, such that the ubuntu-desktop metapackage is not always the root of their "dependency tree."

[CalMo]

Majik still has a VERY valid point! When someone asks how yo remove the gui, any other answer than how to actually remove the gui is per definition off topic. If someone asks "do i have to remove the gui?", feel free to elaborate on the pros and cons of the gui and/or different versions of it.

[Vorac]

@PraveenKumarPurushothaman if your problems is not ROM space but rather RAM+CPU, the correct question to ask is "How do I log into linux without a GUI", not how to uninstall it.

[Praveen Kumar Purushothaman]

@Vorac Yea, sure... Now we have Vagrant and Docker, rendering this question totally useless. 😅 And I have got a machine that's Intel Dual Xeon with 64 GB RAM. So... 😅

[jocull]

Is sudo update-grub still valid? I don't have it in 21.04