Score:0

Installed KDE but cant remove it now

tk flag

As said in the title, I was tired of the default look of ubuntu and installed KDE-Full.

Informations about my system: OS: Ubuntu 20.04 GPU Vendor: AMD (although I doubt that this will be necessary)

But when I now go about and say:

sudo apt-get remove kde-full
sudo apt-get autoremove

It does remove the KDE part. But when I now reboot my system I am unable to see anything.
All I get prompted is a screen that says (my PCs username) Login: (and as I also don't really know what to enter there) and when I type anything, I then get a message (my PCs username) Password: and that's it. I think it somehow broke the desktop environment, but I am far from knowing Linux enough to know how to fix this.

I would appreciate any kind of help! Thanks in advance

Edit: I found the command sudo apt-get install ubuntu-gnome-desktop which sounded promising. But now I am unable to uninstall KDE-full. When I type sudo apt-get remove kde-full and then sudo apt-get autoremove and then sudo apt-get install ubuntu-gnome-desktop; I still boot up with KDE.

guiverc avatar
cn flag
You've not provided any OS & release details; but also be aware that `plymouth` screens are just wallpapers, and removing a desktop will not remove those 'screens' (they're just an image that is used to hide boot messages) as if you've none you'll get errors - you just manually choose another installed `plymouth` screen to replace it.
TheTriaJ avatar
tk flag
Oh I am sorry, I just assumed, as this is labeled as AskUbuntu, it just refers to the "default" ubuntu. My bad. I will edit the original post!
Score:1
cn flag

Log in on your KDE session, then

  1. Restore the default login manager of Ubuntu, GDM.
  2. Restore the Plymouth screen, i.e., the screen with the Ubuntu logo you see during start up.
  3. Restart the computer. On the login screen, change your session to Ubuntu.

That will bring you back to the default Ubuntu desktop. From there, you can remove kde-full and any KDE applications you do not anymore need.

In removing kde-full, you are removing just one tiny metapackage, i.e. a package that lists all packages deemed a part of the full KDE desktop. If you did not take note of all packages that were added when you installed the metapackage, there is no way to automatically remove these specific packages again.

You can safely remove standard applications of the KDE desktop such as Konsole, Dolphin, etc. At a more advanced level, you could manually inspect installed packages, and check carefully before confirming the removal: if removing a package would also remove the ubuntu-desktop metapackage, or a whole bunch of other packages, then you know the package is also needed for other parts of the system and should not be removed. When finished, run a sudo apt autoremove. This will remove any remaining packages that are not anymore needed because you removed programs that used them.

TheTriaJ avatar
tk flag
Thank you very much, and sorry for the late reply! And although it sucks to have to remove all the KDE packages manually, but its a small price. Especially if I can just get a VM run the installation there again and see which packages were all installed! As I had only installed KDE once and then realized that my monitor isnt fully working, I hadnt installed any other software!
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