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For some reason, I am not able to completely remove Kubuntu and all of its associated files from my computer. I have tried many commands, including sudo apt-get purge kubuntu-desktop and the output is this:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package 'kubuntu-desktop' is not installed, so not removed
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

Yet on start-up, the screen reads Kubuntu. What a persistent package smh. How am I suppose to get Kubuntu completely off of machine?

Andros Adrianopolos
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  • It sounds like you're asking about a plymouth screen which is just an image. It remains until you change it and is only the equivalent of a wallpaper (seen on boot & shutdown). It's not a package (though was installed by one). – guiverc May 25 '19 at 22:32
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    What does dpkg --get-selections | grep kde | wc -l show? Because it may not just be plymouth you need to deal with if you want Kubuntu completely off. – DK Bose May 26 '19 at 02:04

1 Answers1

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The desktop environment is deeply integrated into the system. It is not obvious to remove fully all elements related to the KDE desktop as it has been build by the Ubuntu developpers.

The kubuntu-desktop package is but a meta package. Installing it will automatically pull in the hundreds of packages that give you a KDE desktop as the Ubuntu developpers conceived it. However, removing the package will merely remove the meta-package. Using the option --autoremove will remove some more packages, but that will be restricted to some Ubuntu specific icon packs. See some unsatisfactory answers on how to remove the entire desktop here and on many other places in Askubuntu.

There is no way to accurately reversely track all packages specific to a desktop environment, even if you would manually identify all dependencies of the kubuntu-desktop package, and in turn the dependencies of these dependencies. You could break down your entire system to be left with a functional terminal, then install your desktop of choice, but a mistake may leave you with an unbootable system. The only easy way to fundamentally get rid of packages associated with a specific desktop is simply to perform a reinstall with the desktop of your choice.

You may now have already removed a significant part of he KDE-related packages. However, you did not remove the KDE display manager, sddm, which provides the graphical login screen. To remove sddm, you first need to make sure another display manager is installed, then disable sddm and finally enable the other display manager you want to use. Otherwise, you will loose graphical login and automatic start of the graphical environment. When you then restart the system, you should be greeted by the other display manager. After logging in, you can effectively remove sddm if you wish.

Bottom line: it is probably faster and easier to just perform a fresh install if you want to change desktop environments and get rid of all related software. Alternatively, do not bother about remaining components: they will take some disk space but not affect the performance of your system.

vanadium
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