Removing kubuntu-desktop leaves all (automatically install) dependencies installed

[Liam O'Reilly]

Starting with an Ubuntu system you install kubuntu-dekstop, e.g., using the command

sudo aptitude install kubuntu-desktop

you then try out kde and decide you wish to uninstall it, so you try removing what you installed, i.e., you use the command

sudo aptitude remove kubuntu-desktop

or even maybe a purge command, i.e.,

sudo aptitude purge kubuntu-desktop

You would expect that the system returns to the same state ( as in the same installed packages) as before you ran the install command. Instead however only the meta package kubunut-dektop is removed, all the automatically installed dependencies of kubuntu-desktop remain.

kubunut-desktop is a convent way to install Kubuntu from a standard Ubuntu installation. It should also be a convenient way to remove Kubuntu and revert back to Ubuntu.

To reproduce this problem start with a fresh install of ubuntu, issue the command
sudo aptitude install kubuntu-desktop
then
sudo aptitude remove kubuntu-desktop
notice that only the single meta package kubunut-desktop is removed and all the dependencies remain.

I am using Ubuntu 9.04 64 bit version with kubuntu-dektop package version 1.122.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Hi,
This is just how meta packages work. There's nothing that we can do from the meta package to solve this issue. You can always use apt-get autoremove after removing the meta package to remove all the packages that depended against it.
Thanks for your bug report anyways.