How to strip down Ubuntu MATE for pure server purpose?

Support & Help Requests Raspberry Pi
1

Hi there
I Try to install a home file server UBUNTU MATE on it, so far I have installeret Samba, the Caja plugin and webside.
Thing are slowly evolving into something Which could be called a server… files and folders start to appear visible and accesable on my win10 machine… But the MATE start to note that I am in need of more storage, my sdcard in my Rpi2 is 8gb, but still the message appears.
Any way to uninstall not used apps like office to gain more workspace?

thnx in advance

2

Hi,

to remove an unwanted app, simply type the name of the unwanted app at the end of this terminal command:

sudo apt-get remove

As an example, choose the app “Libreoffice”:

sudo apt-get remove libreoffice

The above will only remove the main body of the app but not its dependencies in case there are other packages relying on those dependencies!!. (There is also a “purge” command which I personally won’t recommend!)

This can also be done via Synaptic by opening Synaptic and typing the name of the app in search and right click it and mark it for complete removal!. Using Synaptic might be quicker than using the terminal if you have a lot of apps to remove!.

Hope it helps! :smiley:

3

When it comes to preserving memory (RAM), a new command in 15.10 (and newer) is to disable X11:

graphical disable

This will show the console and treat it like a headless server.

Like @wolfman said, apt-get remove can remove unwanted apps, or Synaptic for an easier graphical interface.

You may notice that it will also remove a package named "ubuntu-mate-desktop" which is OK as it's a meta package. Purging packages also removes its configuration files, so there's a tiny miniature amount of space to gain doing that.

A bit more space may be gained too by erasing apt's cache (which stores downloaded packages):

rm /var/cache/apt/archives/*

Also, take a look at Disk Usage Analyser (Applications → System Tools) to find any files that may be taking up the most amount of space. Like your ~/.cache folder in your home directory, which could easily add up with general usage (ie. web browsing / thumbnails)