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Since Ubuntu 24.04 the login screen is not shown as long as my external HDMI monitor was plugged in. I always had to unplug it, login, replug the monitor. I found out that this seems to be a bug in gdm3, so I installed lightdm and set it as default. Now I can login without having to unplug-login-replug.

Since lightdm works well, I wanted to remove gdm3 with sudo apt purge gdm3, however this tells me that gdm3* ubuntu-desktop* ubuntu-desktop-minimal* would be removed. This sounds rather critical to me. If I try simulating sudo apt -s purge ubuntu-desktop it would basically remove "everything".

Is it even possible to completly (e.g. removing alternatives) switch to lightdm on Ubuntu? I'd like to have a very clean system with only the stable packages I actually use.

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  • Can you post the actual output you get for sudo apt purge gdm3?
    – muru
    Commented Jun 4 at 9:59
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    Don't forget GDM3 is the GNOME Display Manager, and makes calls to the GNOME desktop libraries, which is why it's linked (packages.ubuntu.com/noble/gdm3); plus Ubuntu Desktop relies on GNOME. This is not Ubuntu specific, but a connection built into GNOME. Are you using Ubuntu Desktop and thus GNOME? FYI: I have Ubuntu Desktop (GNOME) installed on this box & use sddm myself.. but I still wouldn't remove gdm3 as I don't see it would achieve much at all of benefit even if accomplished.
    – guiverc
    Commented Jun 4 at 10:21

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Clearly sudo apt purge gdm3 is not the right command to use to safely uninstall gdm3. These commands would be a better way of doing it.

apt --simulate remove gdm3 
sudo apt autoremove

If the results of apt --simulate remove gdm3 look OK, you can uninstall gdm3 with sudo apt remove gdm3 .

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