Uninstall Mate desktop environment from Ubuntu 18.04
Solution 1
To remove MATE DE completely you can use the following commands:
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Parse
dpkg --list
output to get all mentions of MATE and then remove packages with MATE in its description:sudo apt-get purge $(dpkg --list | grep MATE | awk '{print $2}')
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Remove some leftover packages (including Plymouth boot screen) manually with commands below:
sudo apt-get purge libmate-sensors-applet-plugin0 sudo apt-get purge libmateweather-common libmateweather1:amd64 sudo apt-get purge mate-accessibility-profiles sudo apt-get purge mate-notification-daemon sudo apt-get purge mate-notification-daemon-common sudo apt-get purge plymouth-theme-ubuntu-mate-logo sudo apt-get purge plymouth-theme-ubuntu-mate-text
(they are presented by single lines to to be more fail-proof - to avoid the situation if one of them are not installed)
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Install system components back if there were removed with previous commands:
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-release-upgrader-gtk update-manager update-notifier
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And then finally reconfigure your login screen with
sudo dpkg-configure lightdm # for LightDM sudo dpkg-configure gdm3 # for GDM3
Note: the MATE itself is more flexible than GNOME. Also you may want to try Xfce or KDE.
Solution 2
The sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm3
command just re-runs the post-installation script for package gdm3
(gnome's display manager). If you have more than one display manager installed, you'll be asked which you want to run, but no package changes will be made (that would require a dpkg
or apt
like command; the reverse of your tasksel
which is a front-end tool for install meta packages - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Tasksel).
You should sudo apt remove ubuntu-mate-desktop
,
OR to remove remove configuration files as well sudo apt purge ubuntu-mate-desktop
You'll likely be left with the plymouth screen (which is the graphic that hides the boot messages) as that's not considered part of the desktop (it's like a wallpaper), so if that annoys you please refer to How do I change the plymouth bootscreen? which will allow you to change the Ubuntu-MATE plymouth screen to any other you have installed.
Gaurav Agarwal
Updated on September 18, 2022Comments
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Gaurav Agarwal almost 2 years
I installed Mate desktop environment in Ubuntu 18.04 as described in the this blog.
The following commands -
$ sudo apt install tasksel $ sudo apt update $ sudo tasksel install ubuntu-mate-desktop
But I didn't like Mate therefore I tried to uninstall it -
sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm3
But above command did not uninstall Mate environment completely.
How to remove Mate completely from Ubuntu 18.04?
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guiverc almost 5 yearsThe
sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm3
command just re-runs the post-installation script for packagegdm3
(gnome's display manager). You shouldsudo apt remove ubuntu-mate-desktop
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