gnome-panel had – and is still having – a lot of bugs and problems, so I decided to get rid of it, at least till it improves and decided to replace it with Avant Window Navigator.

The problem is that gnome-panel automatically loads at the start of the gnome-session, so I tried first to delete all the panels by right-clicking and choosing “delete panel”, but this wasn’t useful as there must be at least one gnome-panel that you can’t delete, here is the much better solution which keeps your gnome-panel configured exactly as you want it so that you can return to it later and preventing it from automatically running at session startup:

1. Open the gconf-editor (from the terminal or anywhere else)
2. Navigate to destkop->gnome->session
3. Open the “required_components_list”
4. Remove “panel” from the list

Restart your gnome-session: “sudo restart gdm” or simply log out and back in, it’s gone!

Important Note: If you get stuck by disabling the gnome-panel without having avant – or likewise – running, simply at the login screen choose the “xterm” session instead of “gnome” and login, In the opened terminal run “gconf-editor” and add “panel” to the list again, and finally restart your session.