Removing Cinnamon from LMDE 5?

[Kjellinux]

I have been running Linux Mint 19.3 Cinnamon on an old Dell Latitude D610. Since support will end next year, I want to switch to LMDE 5, since it supports 32 bit. Due to the low specifications of the computer I want to create an "LMDE 5 Lite" version. For this purpose I have installed XFCE. This has significantly reduced RAM usage and increased performance. Next I want to remove as much as possible of Cinnamon without breaking the system. In another thread on the topic of installing XFCE I was advice to use the Program Manager rather than Synaptic to do this. So far I have removed the following components without breaking the system:

Cinnamon
Nemo
Cinnamon-screensaver

The following componets are still installed:

Cinnamon-control-center
Cinnamon-session
Cinnamon-settings-daemon
Cjs
Gir1.2-cinnamondesktop-3.0
Gir1.2-cmenu-3.0
Gir1.2-cvc-1.0
Mint-info-cinnamon

I can't determine from the descriptions if the above mentioned components can be removed without breaking the system. My work this far raises the following questions.

1. Which of the remaining components mentioned above can be removed without breaking the system?
2. Are there any other components that can be removed (I typed "cinnamon" in the search field of the Program Manager)?
3. Would it be better to use Synaptic instead of the Program Manager to remove Cinnamon?

[Kjellinux]

While waiting for possible answers, I found out the answer to question # 1 myself. I removed the components one by one except for Mint-info-cinnamon (can't be removed) without breaking the system.

[MLED4]

Hi, I do this all the time to fit lmde on old asus eee pc with 2 or 4 GB ssd and 512mb ram

Code: Select all

sudo apt install mate-session-manager marco mate-control-center --no-install-recommends

Mate desktop uses less ram if you keep nemo and don't install caja. Don't install mate-utils, it's messy. Keep the gnome apps and remap the screenshot hotkey to gnome-screenshot.

Logout and back in as mate desktop, turn off startup apps, remove cinnamon components. You should be able to get idle ram usage down to under 120MB on a 32 bit machine, or a bit more on a 64 bit machine.

Pro tip. Launch synaptic, select all manually installed packages. Switch them all to automatically installed. Or you can use deborphan to find things you can remove. To remove a long deborphan list, login as root

Code: Select all

sudo -i

and run

Code: Select all

deborphan | xargs apt purge -y

[Al-Gear]

How about XFCE? Same machine as yours save for the upgraded RAM (2 GB) here on mine. Anyway, I’ve just installed MATE by running the code you suggested. I’ve also run the following code to remove Cinnamon:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get remove --purge cinnamon* -s

…and punched in the Deborphan commands you suggested to get rid of the leftover packages.

But guess what? Cinnamon is still listed as default under DEs at login, and it still works. And MATE is using over 500 MB of RAM + over 600 MB of cache according to System Monitor. Also, I think caja was installed automatically when I executed the code you had suggested. Furthermore, Desktop is not clickable, and won't show any items unless Marco is started manually.

[Al-Gear]

Bump

[SMG]

Bump

Why are you bumping someone else's topic?

Please do not create posts that say "Bump" and please do not add your questions to someone else's topic. Create your own topic. When you create your own topic then you can use the "Bump topic" option. You can find it in the lower left of screen on the Topic Tools (wrench icon) of topics YOU create. Click the downward pointing triangle beside the wrench to see the "Bump topic" option.

[Al-Gear]

Sori

[Mia]

I use aptitude for such purposes. TUI, not command line. There I can filter packages and then manually select what to do with all or every one of them. You can ask me if you have specific questions.