is complete removal of meta-packages possible?
 

Hello. I'm wondering if complete removal of meta-packages, that being the package itself AND all of its dependencies, is possible in one command of aptitude and/or apt-get. For instance, if I have the whole kde installed, and wish to remove that whole load and replace it with the smaller kdebase, can I do this in two commands (IE, "aptitude remove kde", and then followed by "aptitude install kdebase"). The preceding commands wouldn't work, because just removing the initial meta-package would not remove its dependent packages. BUT, I'm wondering if there is a way to remove a meta-package AND its dependent packages all in one command (rather than having to go through individually removing each one).

Yes, but not the way you envisioned I think ;) Purge one of the core packages the meta package depends on and it'll remove itself (because of unfulfilled dependencies). In your case, the kde-core package should do the trick. Start aptitude interactively and hunt these packages down manually. Use the b-key to cycle through the broken packages and purge them all (actually, only the key packages suffices, but I doubt you know exactly which they are. Neither do I, as Gnome user ;))