Brief history: For variety of reasons, I had transitioned back then from Ubuntu desktop with Gnome 2.0 to Ubuntu XFCE (got sick from Gnome 3), then to Cinnamon desktop environment, which somehow pushed me into Linux Mint world. And then I got Mate desktop which seems to be what I needed for time being. Only Linux Mint turns out to be rather what I'd like to get rid off.
Now the challenge is I have a dev environment. And while I do keep backups, I'd like to transition to Ubuntu back without full re-install and restore.
The switch between stock Ubuntu and e.g. Xubuntu looks simple - just switch apt sources set and let apt do the business. But Linux Mint has some more hooks for "calculations" of URLs and paths. So the darn thing does not let me go back, or at least I perceive it so. I tried to find existing howto to no avail.
Any personal experience would be great, but what I need is a set of steps which describes what to do, at least minimal guidance about pitfalls and (optionally) some hints more about apt under-the-hood changes which do not let me go off now.