From the unity-panel-service manpages:
DESCRIPTION
The unity-panel-service program is normally started automatically by the Unity
shell (which gets started as a compiz module) and is used to draw panels which can
then be used for the global menu, or to hold indicators.
How can the unity-panel-service be non-automatically started abnormally?
In other words, how is it arbitrarily manually started and/or stopped?
The manpage implication is that this can be done without stopping the Unity shell.
This answer seems promising:
Is it possible to restart the unity panel without restarting compiz?
but … not. The process can be killed from System Monitor
but it restarts automatically.
references:
Best Answer
I used this solution to disable automatically starting unity-service-panel from starting. But you should be clear, unity-panel-service is not the panel on top bar, but it provides a service so that indicators can run on the panel.
Solution:
Move the unity-panel-service file to somewhere else
This will move the file to your home folder.
Now Logout using
Ctrl-Alt-Del
shortcut.Login
The service is now disabled. If you want to verify it, run
ps -u | grep unity
in a terminal.To revert the change, move the file back into the original location.