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deshmukh
Asked: 2017-10-04 02:20:12 +0800 CST

Completely remove Budgie

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On Ubuntu Gnome 17.04 using gdm3 display manager, I installed Budgie desktop environment using:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-budgie-desktop

It pulled in a lot of dependencies, etc. But I did not find it too useful so I:

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

However, even after that, when I login, I do see Budgie as an option alongside usual Gnome, Wayland, etc. And I am able to log into Budgie as if I had never removed it!

How do I completely remove Budgie?

apt

3 Answers

  1. ubuntu-budgie-desktop is a meta package.

    A desktop meta package is a master package that installs all related packages for a particular desktop environment.

    In this case - all the packages related to Ubuntu Budgie.

    So in addition to ubuntu-budgie-desktop you must also purge budgie-desktop. This is the graphical environment itself and it will also remove the login session for budgie.

    sudo apt purge ubuntu-budgie-desktop budgie-desktop

    There are a few recommended packages also that are installed with ubuntu-budgie-desktop that will not be removed with the above command - but you can deal with those separately if you so wish.

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    • Uninstall packages: 
      sudo apt remove budgie-desktop-environment budgie-desktop && sudo apt autoremove
    • Remove PPA from 'System Settings' -> 'Software & Updates' -> 'Other Software'
    • Revert to default login screen: 
      sudo apt remove lightdm-gtk-greeter && sudo apt autoremove
    • Restore default splash screen (choose 'ubuntu-logo'): 
      sudo update-alternatives --config default.plymouth
    • Finalize plymouth with: 
      sudo update-initramfs -u
    • 8

  3. My limited experience with testing alternative desktop environments is that, after installing one, it's impractical to remove it short of reinstalling Ubuntu. For the future, what I'd recommend if you want to try an environment is to either try it from the Live media (USB or DVD), with the understanding that everything will be much faster once installed, or make a new partition from free space and install there, so you can get rid of the test environment cleanly when you're done testing.

    The same is true of your old DE when you settle on a new one -- there's no good way to get rid of, for instance, KDE if you switch to MATE or xfce. Because of the amount of space required for a DE install, I'd recommend installing new, clean, and then if needed using the "list packages" feature of a package manager to quickly and efficiently install your tools (if you feel you must have the same tools in a new DE).

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