[SOLVED] remove MATE

[Talasrum]

I installed Lisa on a Asus eee900, and I'm glad of gnome 3, so I'd like to remove mate to free some spaces on my laptop. How to do this in command line ?
Thanks by advance !

[nunol]

If you need more free space you could reinstall with the Mint 12 CD and install only the codec pack or what you need:

To add Multimedia Codecs:

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sudo apt-get install mint-meta-codecs

(55MB Download, +126MB on disk)

To upgrade to the DVD Edition:

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sudo apt-get install mint-meta-gnome-dvd

(300MB Download, +900MB on disk)

To Install Mate:

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sudo apt-get install mint-meta-mate

(105MB Download, + 318MB on disk)

As you can see Mate is not what uses more disk space.

[Talasrum]

So to remove Mate, I just need to remove the package "mint-meta-mate" ? Am I right ?

[nunol]

Actually, Mate has some packages in common with Gnome so you will only save about 121Mb instead of 318MB if you remove Mate. Numbers from the CD version, not the DVD version.

If you remove mint-meta-mate you will only remove the meta package so you will only save a few KB. After removing the meta package you have to do:

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sudo apt-get autoremove

You should also run:

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sudo apt-get clean

[Talasrum]

I made it but only few KB were freed. How remove the full meta package ? thanks by advance

[nunol]

I made it but only few KB were freed. How remove the full meta package ? thanks by advance

The few KB are the full meta package.

You want to remove the packages listed in that meta package. Did you use the autoremove and clean command?

[Talasrum]

i normally use aptitude but the command autoremove doesn't work...
so I tried with apt... but as it was removed already nothing happened....
an idea ?

[nunol]

Did you check the disk space before and after? You can use:

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df -m

I check that in a VM and worked as expected, I saved 121MB by removing the mint-meta-mate and using autoremove but I used apt-get always.

You can check that by trying to install the mint-meta-mate package again but selecting "no" at the prompt. You can see how much MB's you have do download and how much more disk space it's going to use. If it's zero MB's that's because Mate wasn't properly removed.

[Talasrum]

I did so...
but apt-get autoremove freed only very few kb like aptitude....
my question is entire...

[nunol]

If you run

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sudo apt-get install mint-meta-mate

how many MB do have to install and how many more on the disk?

[Talasrum]

32 KB

[nunol]

Did you run this command?

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sudo apt-get clean

[Talasrum]

yes

[nunol]

Just tested this in a VM with the DVD and it happens the way you say. When I test with the CD it happens the way I say...

I installed on the CD VM the codecs and the DVD version and when I asked apt-get to install mate it installed the following packages:

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caja gir1.2-mate-menus libcaja-extension libmatedesktop libmatekbd libmatenotify libmateweather mate-backgrounds mate-conf-editor mate-control-center mate-desktop mate-dialogs   mate-doc-utils mate-file-manager mate-icon-theme mate-media mate-menus mate-notification-daemon mate-panel mate-polkit mate-session-manager mate-settings-daemon mate-terminal   mate-window-manager menu menu-xdg mint-artwork-mate mint-meta-mate mintmenu python-mate-desktop python-mate-menu

31 packages, 62.7MB to donwload, more 153MB on disk.

Then I asked apt-get to remove mate and it removed the following packages:

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caja gir1.2-mate-menus libcaja-extension libmatedesktop libmatekbd libmateweather mate-backgrounds mate-conf-editor mate-control-center mate-desktop mate-doc-utils mate-file-manager mate-media mate-menus mate-notification-daemon mate-panel mate-polkit mate-session-manager mate-settings-daemon mate-terminal menu-xdg mint-artwork-mate mintmenu python-mate-desktop python-mate-menu

25 packages, less 121MB on disk.

You should be able to remove this last list of packages without any problem and save 121MB with the command:

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sudo apt-get remove caja gir1.2-mate-menus libcaja-extension libmatedesktop libmatekbd libmateweather mate-backgrounds mate-conf-editor mate-control-center mate-desktop mate-doc-utils mate-file-manager mate-media mate-menus mate-notification-daemon mate-panel mate-polkit mate-session-manager mate-settings-daemon mate-terminal menu-xdg mint-artwork-mate mintmenu python-mate-desktop python-mate-menu

You could also try to remove other packages that you think you don't need but it's better to backup you system first, I find Clonezilla very fast and practical for this type of backups but I used Virtualbox to help you with this. After testing both the CD and the DVD version I think you would get more free space if you did a reinstall with the CD version.

[Talasrum]

Great answer !!!! it works as u said !
Thx so much for the time you spent !!!!

[nunol]

I am glad I could help.