How to install Lubuntu Desktop Environment and ONLY the desktop environment?

You can also use

sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends lubuntu-desktop 

Which will install the Lubuntu desktop without all the recommended applications, though things that rely on these applications will not work.

I think a better way to do it would be to install all of lubuntu-desktop with:

sudo apt-get install lubuntu-desktop  

and then use the Lubuntu Software Center to remove applications you aren't going to use. You can then remove lubuntu-software-center with:

sudo apt-get remove lubuntu-software-center

The only difference between this approach and Ringtail's is installing lxde will give you the generic LXDE desktop, while installing lubuntu-desktop will give you more of an Ubuntu specific LXDE, with custom wallpapers for example.


Kinda like asking for a vanilla ice cream cone but I don't want the cone

That being said. Lubuntu-Desktop will bring in a lot of dependencies.

For a list of Applications

How to get Lubuntu

How to Install Lubuntu


If it were me I would just open a terminal and

sudo apt-get install lxde

Which gives you the lightweight distro without the extras.

See LXDE wiki

do the Minimal Ubuntu + LXDE Installation


I recently installed Lubuntu from the latest alternative disk http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/precise/daily/current/ as a minimal install by installing it to command line.

Then I installed lubuntu-core

sudo apt-get install lubuntu-core

It then had none of the extra software install. Originally I tried with --no-install-recommends but this left it too bare and seemingly with missing dependencies. After doing this I installed lxappearance and obconf to allow me to change the themes easily

sudo apt-get install lxappearance obconf

I installed firefox without any recommended software as the addons are for Gnome.

sudo apt-get install firefox --no-install-recommends

I had some errors in my xsession-errors file that cleared up after installing the below

sudo apt-get install gtk2-engines-pixbuf

Network manager needs setting up after lubuntu-core has been installed from a minimal install https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Lubuntu/Documentation/MinimalInstall#Unmanaged_Wired_Network The nm-system-settings.conf is now called NetworkManager.conf as written below

Change Network Manager settings Start an LXTerminal session, then issue:

sudo nano /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf

In section [ifupdown] find the line managed=false and replace it with managed=true. Save and quit. Get back to LXTerminal and issue:

sudo service network-manager restart

After a short while you should see "Connection established" message above the Network Manager applet tray icon.