Install Ubuntu with vanilla MATE desktop (no Software Boutique or Welcome snaps)

Solution 1:

You install Ubuntu MATE task on the 20.04 LTS minimal system obtained from netboot mini.iso by

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-mate-desktop^

and it will not have Snaps preinstalled. Please note that you need to fix Network Manager by following this answer.

If you have installed Snaps by yourself - remove both by:

sudo snap remove software-boutique --purge
sudo snap remove ubuntu-mate-welcome --purge

Or more debian-like way by installing binaries which were compiled from the same mate-desktop-environment source package:

sudo apt-get install mate-desktop-environment mate-desktop-environment-extra