kubuntu themes

I don't know exactly what you mean by delete or remove, the following is guesswork on my side:

in Ubuntu we use the Debian packaging system. Every package that is installed in your machine is registered, and every package which is removed, it is removed using the registration information.
To avoid breaking the "register", it is not advised to manually delete files. If you need to delete files, just remove the associated package.
Now, I assume you manually delete files (if not please let us know).

When you updated your system, the updater used the "register" to propose new updates. Most probably it detected that you were still using themes, and proposed a new updated package for installation. Your themes were therefore back.
It is possible that this update (due to the previous manual deletion) was not completely successfull. Somehow your machine now believes that you have themes in /usr/share/apps/kdm/themes/kubuntu, which you obviously don't, ergo the error message.

Thanks for the answer. Let me see if I understand what you wrote correctly.

When I removed the themes, I did so by going to =>Settings=>Appearance & Themes=>Theme Manager and used the "Remove Theme" option. I am still new enough to Linux that I can have a difficult time understanding some of its logic, and that is particularly true of "packages"--when I first installed "Kubuntu", I removed, or at least tried to remove all the games except Mahjongg and Chess, since those are the only two games I am ever likely to use and it is an office computer. My recollection is that there were several I was unable to remove because of "dependencies", so I simply removed the links to those programs from the Kmenu.

Keep in mind that I come from a DOS/Windows mindset, and thus my understanding of a "manual delete" is to remove all files, if not the directory itself either from the DOS prompt with the commond "erase *.*" or Windows Explorer by selecting the appropriate directory folder and hitting the "delete" key.

I would agree with you that the root of my problem is that an "update" was unsucessful, but I am inclined to believe that it was when I moved from Ubuntu to Kubuntu (I wanted to install Kubuntu from the start, but was unable to get a "clean" installation, so had to install Ubuntu then convert it to Kubuntu). A significant number of packages I have subsequently tried to install, using the instructions in the various manuals I purchased, e.g., Moving to Ubuntu Linux and Ubuntu Hacks, among others, either would not install at all, or would not work properly once they were installed.

Michael,

For some more insight about packages and how to install/remove software in Ubuntu, I can recommend you this link:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InstallingSoftware

If you want to physically remove themes, you should do it removing the associated package(s).
An example of Kubuntu packages which contains themes/icons are:

kde-icons-crystal - Crystal icon theme for KDE
kde-icons-crystalclear - Everaldo's "Crystal Clear" icon theme for KDE
kde-icons-noia - Noia icon theme for KDE 3
kde-icons-nuovext - nuoveXT icon theme for KDE
kde-icons-nuvola - Nuvola icon theme for KDE
kde-kdm-themes - Themes for the K Display Manager
kde-style-klearlook - Clone of GNOME's Clearlooks theme for KDE
kde-style-polyester - Polyester widget style and kwin decoration for KDE3
kdmtheme - theme manager for KDM
kde-icons-mono - a monochromatic icons theme for KDE
kdeartwork - themes, styles and more from the official KDE release
kdeartwork-misc - various multimedia goodies released with KDE
kdeartwork-theme-icon - icon themes released with KDE
kdeartwork-theme-window - window decoration themes released with KDE
kde-icon-theme-kneu - kNeu KDE icon theme
kwin-style-crystal - semi transparant window decoration for KDE
kwin-baghira - KDE theme for Apple junkies :)
kwin-style-alphacube - Alphacube window decoration for KDE
kwin-style-blended - a window decoration theme for KDE
kwin-style-dekorator - windows decoration for kde using user-supplied PNG files
kwin-style-knifty - knifty window decoration for KDE
kwin-style-powder - Powder plasmaoid window decoration for kde
kwin-style-suse2 - KDE window decoration from SUSE 9.3
kwin-style-serenity - plasmoid inspired window decoration for KDE

There is quite a lot of personal customisation to suit all tastes and needs. Just be careful with:

- dependancies (or you may end up removing an essential piece of software) and
- updates (so as to not download again a package that was removed).

In doubt, you can simulate a removal. It requires usage of the Command Line Interface though; for instance, suppose you want to check what will happen removing the package kwin-style-crystal. You give this command in a terminal:

sudo apt-get remove --purge -s kwin-style-crystal

sudo is the prefix needed to allow you to execute the command, since the command requires superuser privileges
apt-get is the actual command (it is the base of all package management in ubuntu/debian)
remove is telling apt that you want to remove a package
--purge is an option that allows you to remove all associated configuration files as well
-s is the option that tells apt to simulate the operation
kwin-style-crystal is the package

The output could be something like this:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED
  kubuntu-default-settings* kwin-style-crystal*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Purg kubuntu-default-settings [1:7.04-39]
Purg kwin-style-crystal [1.0.2-1ubuntu1]

Because of dependancies there is an extra-package removed: kubuntu-default-settings
Now, if you don wan't to remove it you shouldn't remove kwin-style-crystal.

A final note of caution, dependancies are very often hand generated, it is therefore possible that you remove a package thinking it is not essential, and because of a packaging mistake you end up with a system which doesn't work as you want anymore (or may even stop working); just be careful and use your judgement.