Uninstall and remove Desktop Environments from Linux Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.04 and Ubuntu 14.10. Uninstall Cinnamon desktop for Ubuntu. Remove Mate desktop from Ubuntu.
Installing Desktop Environments on Linux Ubuntu is quite easy, but most of the users fail to uninstall and remove the Desktop Environments correctly.
To make things easier, this tutorial explains the correct method to uninstall and remove the installed Desktop Environments from Linux Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.04 and Ubuntu 14.10.
Uninstall Cinnamon 2.6 From Ubuntu
Cinnamon is a GTK+-based desktop environment initially developed by and for Linux Mint Systems.
Here’s how to uninstall and remove the Cinnamon 2.6 Desktop Environment from Linux Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.04 and Ubuntu 14.10.
If you do not want to use Cinnamon, just go back to Unity like we changed to Cinnamon previously. In a terminal, use the following commands:
sudo apt-get purge cinnamon* nemo-* cjs muffin* python-nemo
sudo add-apt-repository -r ppa:moorkai/cinnamon
Uninstall Mate Desktop From Ubuntu
Here’s how to uninstall and remove the Mate Desktop Environment from Linux Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.04 and Ubuntu 14.10.
To uninstall Mate from Ubuntu frist you need to install PPA Purge. Run the following commands to install PPA Purge using the following command:
sudo apt-get install ppa-purge
Once installed (PPA Purge), run the following commands to purge all the packages installed (during Mate installation):
sudo ppa-purge ppa:ubuntu-mate-dev/ppa
sudo ppa-purge ppa:ubuntu-mate-dev/trusty-mate
For many, the above commands doesn’t work. In such case, run the following commands to uninstall the Mate desktop environment:
sudo apt-get remove mate-*
sudo apt-get autoremove
The above commands will uninstall the Mate Desktop Environment. In few cases, even after uninstalling Mate, users still see Mate login screen. Here’s how to fix that and get Unity greeter back:
sudo gedit /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
Now add the following lines in the file:
[SeatDefaults] greeter-session=unity-greeter
user-session=ubuntu
Once you are done, restart the system.