How do I remove a DE from debian?

Dirk , 10 months ago

What is the best way to do it?

By uninstalling the corresponding packages, I guess … Don’t know in detail how Debian works nowadays, but there will likely a meta package or a package group you can remove to remove Xfce with all dependencies

Chais , 10 months ago

Enjoy your bian, I guess.

WhyAUsername_1 , 10 months ago

Hahaha… thanks for the Chuckle…

BearPear OP , 10 months ago

Nice joke. That is clever

Chais , 10 months ago

Thanks

nbailey , 10 months ago

If it was installed with tasksel that would be a good way to remove any dependancies like lightdm as well.

planish , 10 months ago

Open up Synaptic, search up all the packages that say stuff about XFCE, mark them for removal, and then apply all the changes.

AspieEgg , 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

I think that: sudo apt purge xfce4* sudo apt autoremove

should do it.

I’ll point out that the other answers here are also correct. It depends on how you want to clean it from your system.

“apt remove” will only remove the packages, not the config files
“apt purge” will remove the packages and config files
“apt autoremove” will clean up the orphaned dependencies
“xfce4” will only remove the DE
“xfce4*” will remove the DE and most of the other packages that come with xfce

iopq , 10 months ago

When I did this on Ubuntu, when I shut down I still see some stuff from xfce

AspieEgg , 10 months ago

Not every package that comes with xfce has a name that starts with xfce4, just most of them do. You may need to identify and remove other packages too.

iopq , 10 months ago

This is why I hate apt

In NixOS when you remove the package from the list of packages you don’t have the symlinks pointing to it anymore, so it is like it’s not there (you can garbage collect it)

wildbus8979 , 10 months ago

You can combine all of those with apt remove --auto-remove --purge xfce4*

gideonstar , 10 months ago

hat would be a good way to remove any depe

apt --purge autoremove xfce4

RickyRigatoni , 10 months ago

That’s a lot easier than my method of loading synaptic, searching the DE name, then marking everything for removal.

BearPear OP , 10 months ago

Thanks. This is helpful

bizdelnick , 10 months ago

apt remove --auto-remove xfce4

lily33 , 10 months ago

That’s the way. However, I’d like to add that when I used Debian, I regularly got leftovers after uninstalling things, especially when removing big things work lots of dependencies. So expect some dependencies to remain.

MangoPenguin , 10 months ago

That’s just how package managers seem to work in my experience. Even using –purge on APT leaves behind a ton of junk.

bizdelnick , 10 months ago

–purge does not do anything with dependencies. You will need to explicitly remove all packages that are marked as installed manually, i. e. all packages that you pointed a package manager to install. If a DE was installed automatically by Debian installer, or if you installed it with apt install xfce4, the only manually installed component it the xfce4 metapackage, and using the –auto-remove flag will remove all its dependencies. But if you additionally installed any components or packages that depend on that components, you will also need to clean them up manually.

MangoPenguin , 10 months ago

But if you additionally installed any components or packages that depend on that components, you will also need to clean them up manually.

Doesn’t –autoremove purge do that?

BearPear OP , 10 months ago

Thanks

Prismey , 10 months ago

You can run sudo apt purge xfce4 (if you wan to remove all of its components and dependencies) or sudo apt remove xfce4. <br> If you don’t have an other DE installed, I suggest you find one and do it form the other DE, because if you don’t, you’re gonna end up without a graphical environement, and you would have to do everything frop the terminal.

DAT , 10 months ago

sudo

debian :D

ultra , 10 months ago

What?

wisplike_sustainer , 10 months ago

Some new Debian users, usually coming from Ubuntu, are shocked by problems like “sudo not working in Debian”.

DAT , 10 months ago

default debian config isn’t enabling sudo for created users

(and that’s a good choice imo)

but you can of course use “su -” and just switch to root propperly

jyte , 10 months ago

if you do not provide a root password during install, the default user is in sudoer.

DAT , 10 months ago

I know.

but since there’s that field in the install wizard, asking you for that password, I’d guess most people will provide one.m?