How to get rid of the bottom panel in gnome 3 classic session

  • It is the Window List plugin the same one used in Gnome Shell standard session which comes within gnome-shell-extensions package. It's full name:

    [email protected]
    

    Installed in: /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/

  • What it seems happening is .. the Gnome Classic session use it as a required plugin. So it does ignore disabling it. (Using gnome-tweak-tool)

  • To get rid of it, move it somewhere else or delete it

    sudo rm -r /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/[email protected]
    
  • To re-enable it, copy it back or reinstall gnome-shell-extensions.

    sudo apt-get install --reinstall gnome-shell-extensions
    

To check the current panels:

$ gsettings get org.gnome.gnome-panel.layout toplevel-id-list
['top-panel-0', 'bottom-panel-0']

Set the panel which you want to stay visible with Tried in Ubuntu 12.04:

$ gsettings set org.gnome.gnome-panel.layout toplevel-id-list "['top-panel-0']"

which will leave you with only the top-panel like you see in the snapshot below.

snap1

(With that done I wasn't able to Super + W or Alt + tab the minimized windows. But I haven't checked with other dock apps.. I suppose they'll work.)

To use both the panels again just run:

$ gsettings set org.gnome.gnome-panel.layout toplevel-id-list "['top-panel-0', 'bottom-panel-0']"

Apparently GNOME shows an option to delete panels on Alt + right click. On some machines it can be Alt + Super (the "windows" key) + right click. A menu should appear with the option to delete. If not, then I'm sorry.

EDIT: Didn't see the comment chain where you said that. weird stuff.