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Okay my question is that, I want to run a heavy application, on a Virtual Machine (VirtualBox) with just 2 GB RAM (Windows 7 32Bit Host has 4 GB, 3.5 GB effective). Initially I thought of installing Ubuntu Server 12.04.1, which doesn't come with a GUI, so I thought it would be efficient in performance, but I have only Ubuntu 12.04 Desktop.

My question is, is it possible to remove the GUI parts in Ubuntu 12.04 Desktop (Not Server), keeping only the core OS, after installation in a virtual machine?

Or, is there anyway to improve the performance of the OS?

If you need more information, I am ready to provide.

I don't want the GUI or anything, even a small terminal window is fine for me, I can access files through FTP.

fossfreedom
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Praveen Kumar Purushothaman
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4 Answers4

56

It is not needed to remove the GUI (unity, lightdm, compiz, etc.) from the system.

You can leave it and just make your default boot as a text mode and if once you need a GUI you can restore it easily.

open /etc/default/grub as root in your favourite text editor, for example sudo vi /etc/default/grub And change the line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" To GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="text" and update Grub.sudo update-grub Your system will then always boot to text mode.

If you once want to use GUI you can easly start lightdm, the GUI:

sudo service lightdm start

Here are some hints that you may use to increase performance of your system.

Oxylibrium
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32

None of these answers answers the user's question.

  • Advising how to disable the GUI is not removing it.
  • Advising how to use a different GUI is not removing it.
  • Advising to use a different Linux distro is not removing it.

The commands to remove the GUI are:

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

This will remove the Ubuntu Desktop meta-package and all associated packages.

If you're going to answer the question, answer the question.

Majik
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9

Alternatively you can install openbox, one of the most lightweight window managers available:

sudo apt-get install openbox openbox-themes obconf obmenu

This automatically adds an openbox session to the login menu. And this is its GUI:

enter image description here

Yep, that's it. Nothing more but a right-click menu. A GUI with an incredibly low RAM footprint, just like you want it.

Glutanimate
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0

Here is a list of packages to be remove the GUI on Kubuntu-desktop:

apt purge linux-headers-5.15.0-53-generic linux-headers-5.15.0-56-generic linux-headers-5.4.0-135 linux-headers-5.4.0-135-generic linux-headers-5.4.0-136 linux-headers-5.4.0-136-generic linux-headers-5.8.0-55-generic linux-headers-virtual linux-headers-virtual-hwe-20.04 linux-image-5.15.0-53-generic linux-image-5.15.0-56-generic linux-image-5.4.0-135-generic linux-image-5.4.0-136-generic linux-image-5.8.0-55-generic linux-image-virtual linux-image-virtual-hwe-20.04 linux-modules-5.15.0-53-generic linux-modules-5.15.0-56-generic linux-modules-5.4.0-135-generic linux-modules-5.4.0-136-generic linux-modules-5.8.0-55-generic linux-modules-extra-5.15.0-53-generic linux-modules-extra-5.15.0-56-generic linux-modules-extra-5.8.0-55-generic linux-virtual linux-virtual-hwe-20.04 linux-headers-5.4.0-137 linux-headers-5.4.0-137-generic linux-headers-generic linux-cloud-tools-5.15.0-53-generic linux-cloud-tools-5.15.0-56-generic linux-cloud-tools-5.4.0-135 linux-cloud-tools-5.4.0-135-generic linux-hwe-5.15-cloud-tools-5.15.0-53 linux-hwe-5.15-cloud-tools-5.15.0-56 linux-hwe-5.15-headers-5.15.0-53 linux-hwe-5.15-headers-5.15.0-56 linux-hwe-5.15-tools-5.15.0-53 linux-hwe-5.15-tools-5.15.0-56 linux-tools-5.15.0-53-generic linux-tools-5.15.0-56-generic linux-tools-5.4.0-135 linux-tools-5.4.0-135-generic adwaita-icon-theme appmenu-gtk3-module firefox gir1.2-gtk-3.0 gnome-accessibility-themes gnome-themes-extra gnome-themes-extra-data gnome-themes-standard gparted humanity-icon-theme ibus ibus-gtk ibus-gtk3 kde-config-gtk-style kde-config-gtk-style-preview kubuntu-desktop libappmenu-gtk3-parser0 libgail-common libgail18 libgtk-3-0 libgtk-3-bin libgtk2.0-0 libgtk2.0-bin libgtkmm-3.0-1v5 librest-0.7-0 libscim8v5 libsoup-gnome2.4-1 openjdk-17-jdk openjdk-17-jre plasma-desktop putty qt5-gtk-platformtheme spice-vdagent system-config-printer-common thunderbird thunderbird-locale-de thunderbird-locale-en thunderbird-locale-en-us ubuntu-mono vlc-plugin-notify apache-netbeans appmenu-gtk-module-common at-spi2-core ca-certificates-java cups-pk-helper dconf-cli fonts-dejavu-extra fonts-noto-unhinted gir1.2-atk-1.0 gir1.2-freedesktop gir1.2-gdkpixbuf-2.0 gir1.2-ibus-1.0 gir1.2-notify-0.7 gir1.2-pango-1.0 gir1.2-secret-1 gparted-common gtk-update-icon-cache ibus-data java-common kde-style-oxygen-qt5 kgamma5 libatk-bridge2.0-0 libatk-wrapper-java libatk-wrapper-java-jni libatk1.0-0 libatk1.0-data libatkmm-1.6-1v5 libatspi2.0-0 libcairomm-1.0-1v5 libdbusmenu-glib4 libdbusmenu-gtk3-4 libglibmm-2.4-1v5 libgtk-3-common libgtk2.0-common libibus-1.0-5 libice-dev libkf5emoticons-bin libkf5emoticons-data libkf5emoticons5 libkfontinst5 libkfontinstui5 liboxygenstyle5-5 liboxygenstyleconfig5-5 libpangomm-1.4-1v5 libpangoxft-1.0-0 libpthread-stubs0-dev libqt5concurrent5 libsigc++-2.0-0v5 libsm-dev libx11-dev libxau-dev libxcb-record0 libxcb1-dev libxdmcp-dev libxt-dev openjdk-17-jdk-headless openjdk-17-jre-headless plasma-desktop-data plasma-thunderbolt putty-tools python3-cairo python3-ibus-1.0 qml-module-qt-labs-settings x11proto-core-dev x11proto-dev xorg-sgml-doctools xsettingsd xtrans-dev xul-ext-ubufox netdata teamviewer texlive-base texlive-binaries texlive-extra-utils texlive-latex-base texlive-latex-recommended gnupg-agent iptraf libllvm9 libu2f-udev plasma-discover-snap-backend qml-module-qtquick-xmllistmodel qtgstreamer-plugins-qt5

then run

apt autoremove to remove the dependencies
rubo77
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