All pre-installed packages needed for ubuntu-mate-desktop?

Hey everyone,

I just installed Ubuntu Mate 14.10 on one of our thin clients at work as an alternative to Windows. That’s why I wanted to delete some unneeded packages. But no matter what I want to delete - usb-creator, libre-office-drawer - it always wants to delete the package ubuntu-mate-desktop.
But why? Is there a possibility to create a sleeker system?

Thanks!

I might have this wrong, but from what I understand, pre-15.04 versions of Ubuntu Mate (the 14.04 and 14.10 releases) are built outside of the main Canonical structure. That being the case, I think Martin was forced to package everything up in a single bundle. That means that if you try to uninstall one particular aspect of the initially installed system, it wants to take everything else down with it.

I am guessing that the newer version (15.04) will no longer have the above issue. I happen to be using 14.04 myself. The way I have dealt with the issue is to simply leave the existing software in place and just remove its icons from the menu. Then install whatever replacement software I want. I realise this might not be an appropriate solution for you if you are trying to keep your system as skinny as possible. In which case, your solution might be to install the 15.04 version. But, I would just check with Martin first to establish that the problem of the system being all packaged as a interdependent whole has been resolved in 15.04.

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I’ve tested the above issue on virtualbox with 14.10 and 15.04 and what you say is true.
In 14.10, it looks like the mate desktop was packaged as a metapackage.
Removing components in 15.04 doesn’t suffer from this.
So yes, the solution would be to use 15.04.

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