Mate 18.3/GPD Pocket
Because the Xubuntu panel has the ability to embed itself in the window title bar, I'm running that instead of mate-panel:
I don't want to run two panels, but mate-panel restarts itself even after
killall mate-panel
Right now, my only recourse is:
sudo mv /usr/bin/mate-panel /usr/bin/mate-panel.old
which is ugly in many ways.
Is there a way to uninstall mate-panel and keep the rest of the desktop, etc?
Many thanks.
I think I figured it out. Using dconf-editor, go org > mate > desktop > session > required-components.
Once there, change the value of "panel" from "mate-panel" to "xfce4-panel"
This works only to cleanly disable mate-panel:
jake@mate ~ $ killall mate-panel
mate-panel: no process found
The change in dconf-editor will not automatically start xfce4-panel, so you have to set that auto-start yourself.
The above works for Mate 18.3. The dconf-editor in 18.04 works a little differently.
Go go org > mate > desktop > session > required-components-list
Turn off "Use default value"
In the "Custom value" of "[ 'window manager', filemanager', 'panel', 'dock' ], delete 'panel' leaving the other three components, and their syntax, intact.
As with 18.3, you'll have to set up the auto-start of xfce4-panel yourself.
In Mint 20.x you don't need to change the dconf setting.
Add a new entry in Startup Applications called mate-panel with this command:
mate-panel --replace --sm-client-disable
If you want mate-panel started at login, check the box.
Now it can be killed without it restarting itself. This allows you to be able to hide the panel for custom applications, and restart it after if you want to.
If you don't want mate-panel started at login, uncheck the box.