How to remove KDE?

[Daan]

Hi! I'm doing a Debian net install on my old laptop right now. The downloading of packages is taking quite some time, but there's no way I'm going through all the packages by hand to select the ones I need. So I've chosen to install a desktop profile. But this will install something I do bot need: KDE. I have two questions about this:

1) How can I remove KDE?

I have read somewhere that removing kdelibs will remove KDE, because all KDE applications depend on that package. Will that be OK?

2) Why does Debian (and many other distro's) come with two desktop environments (Gnome and KDE)?

Isn't one enough? Would'nt it be nice to have a choice during the installation between Gnome and KDE (without having to manually pick the packages)?

My old laptop has limmited storage capacity, so...

[Cryptofreak]

2) Why does Debian (and many other distro's) come with two desktop environments (Gnome and KDE)?

Isn't one enough? Would'nt it be nice to have a choice during the installation between Gnome and KDE (without having to manually pick the packages)?

My old laptop has limmited storage capacity, so...

Debian has the Desktop Envoronment setup with both as default, so you are correct, you have the choice not to install it at all, but then you will need to add one or the other later if you want one of them. I believe they add it that way that way users have a choice which one they want to use without having to install it manually.


If you have the system the way you want and just want to remove KDE. As root do the following.

apt-get remove kde

That should remove all packages for KDE.

Hope this helps!
Cheers,
-Crypto

[Edit: Misread a line, so I fixed my response to answer question.]

[Daan]

Thanks for your answer, Crypto.

I just marked everything depending on kdelibs for removal in Synaptic and quickly scanned the list to look for things not to remove (e.g. Nautilus and Epiphany), unmarked those, and hit the Apply button, then rebooted. In the login screen, I cannot opt for KDE under Sessions anymore, which is good. And everything seems to be workinf fine during the one minute that I tried.