Safely removing Gnome

sidebrnz · #1 15th June 2011, 11:15 PM

I've been using Gnome for several years and haven't had any real problems with it. Now, however, I find the descriptions of what Gnome 3 and the Gnome Shell quite unsettling. That is, the Gnome devs have added a number of things I don't want, removed things I do want and made it impossible to configure Gnome 3 to work anywhere near what I want without adding unsupported third-party extensions. (Note: this is neither a complaint nor a flame; it's just a statement of my personal taste and any attempts to argue about it will be ignored.)

Currently, I have installed XFCE and am very happy with it on my two F14 boxes. I know that if and when I move to F15 (or F16 if 15 continues to be as problematic as it is so far) the upgrade will include Gnome 3, even though I don't use it. I'd like, therefore, to remove it but without removing any bits and pieces of it that are needed by whatever programs I'm using. What's the safest way to do this?

stevea · #2 16th June 2011, 01:17 AM

I'll suggest you use yumex, and select the 'groups' view. This is similar to the installer package selector.

The other alternative is
yum groupremove "GNOME Desktop Environment"
but the grouperase wants to yank some (bad) dependencies like avahi, emacs, wine.

I feel your pain.

---------- Post added at 08:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:17 PM ----------

I just tried this from a KVM F15 liveCD install. It *seems* that the yumex removal of Gnome Desktop removed something in systemd needed to get the KDE desktop up.

Doing a
yum groupinstall "KDE Software Compilation"
fixes the issue.

sidebrnz · #3 16th June 2011, 04:07 AM

Thanx. I'll try it (yumex) on my laptop when I have time. That way, if there are any nasty surprises, my main box is safe.

flyingfsck · #4 16th June 2011, 05:54 AM

Why bother removing it? Trying to unscramble an egg is difficult and hard disk space is rarely an issue.

Just install all the other desktop systems you want to try. Fedora will make you a nice login menu where you can choose what you want to play with. I have Gnome, KDE, LXDE, XFCE and some others in my login menu.

sidebrnz · #5 16th June 2011, 06:20 AM

I have all the DEs I want: XFCE. And, I see no reason to waste time and bandwidth installing and updating something I've no desire to use such as Gnome 3 or the Gnome Shell.

DavidMcCann · #6 16th June 2011, 05:48 PM

If you use yum groupremove it will display a list of the things being deleted; just note anything you will still need and re-install. yum install gdm is vital, if you want to be able to log in again!

stevea · #7 17th June 2011, 05:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavidMcCann

If you use yum groupremove it will display a list of the things being deleted; just note anything you will still need and re-install. yum install gdm is vital, if you want to be able to log in again!

I always use kdm and there is lxdm and others - so no - you don't need gdm - thankfully since it's nearly useless and half broken. *DO* configure the displaymanager authenticator in /etc/sysconfig/desktop before you go too far.

Yes groupremove produces a list, but so does yumex in the log field. You'd be surprised at how the bad/profligate dependency lists cause all sorts of "good stuff" to get thrown out with the groupremove bathwater. For whatever reason yumex *seems* a little better but still causes problems.

Nothing wrong with Fedora being Gnome-centric, but it's a shame that other desktop users have to jump through hoops to delete it.

hunger · #8 8th August 2011, 08:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sidebrnz

I have all the DEs I want: XFCE. And, I see no reason to waste time and bandwidth installing and updating something I've no desire to use such as Gnome 3 or the Gnome Shell.

OP, did you ever get around to trying this? I want to do the same thing at some point (migrate to Xfce and safely remove unneeded GNOME packages)...

sidebrnz · #9 8th August 2011, 11:36 PM

No. There's too much chance of throwing out too many babies with the bathwater.

hunger · #10 9th August 2011, 12:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sidebrnz

No. There's too much chance of throwing out too many babies with the bathwater.

Too bad, I didn't want to be the first one to try this!

Is it possible to change the desktop environment using preupgrade? I don't remember. Seems like if you selected Xfce and unselected Gnome, that any Gnome dependencies needed for Xfce would be kept...