Ubuntu GNOME – How to Remove GNOME to Run Only Compiz

You already pointed out two options that I was going to suggest :) Anyway I think it's worth making clear that you have many options.

• Stick with Ubuntu 10.04 for now. This is not a long term option, because eventually you will run out of updates (3 years for desktops, 5 years for servers). And who wants to use outdated software anyway, especially when it's free? After that maybe you will find the next LTS (12.04) is usable?
• Change to another distribution, like Mint. Since Ubuntu 11.04 I have found myself and a lot of my friends getting more satisfaction from Mint. Basically Mint is a modded version of Ubuntu (with Mint 11 being based on Ubuntu 11.04), so compatibility is an obvious bless. Soon Mint will be going after Gnome 3 (starting in the next release, which is somewhere near the end of this year), but I guess Gnome 3 will become more usable by then.
• Change for something different. Linux gives you many (sometimes too many) choices, so if you don't like something, feel free to take another. Gnome 2 is going to be deprecated so I wouldn't recommend looking for something with it. You can try KDE with Kubuntu, Openbox with Crunchbang, XFCE with Mint and what-not. The destination for choosing a distribution would be DistroWatch.

You don't have to remove GNOME to use dwm, you can just install dwm and use it instead.

Removing GNOME might simplify cirvumventing xdm/gdm (dm = display manager; these are the things that control the graphical login) -- but it also might not. If you install multiple DEs, they may configure the dm to use a chooser, however, a stand-alone window manager such as dwm won't be included.

Meaning, you have to do a bit of manual work to run dwm anyway, so I recommend you just leave GNOME on disk. To use dwm you will want to create a ~/.Xclients:

#!/bin/sh

dwm

Make that executable: chmod o+x .Xclients (I'm not sure if that is really necessary). If either that or ~/.xinitrc already exists, edit that instead and comment out whatever is there (i.e. add # to the beginning of the line), and put dwm at the bottom.

At this point, you should be able to try dwm by logging out and switching to an unused VT (e.g. via ctrl-alt-F3). Log in on the console and type startx.

You can then try rebooting to see if xdm will use your configuration. If not, you need to disable the xdm or gdm services. I don't have those installed, so I am not sure what systemd calls them -- systemctl list-units | grep dm should provide a clue. Then systemctl disable [whatever]. You'll need root or sudo to use the systemctl commands. Then reboot. You will probably end up at a console prompt, just log in and type startx.