On Friday 26 December 2014 10:32:50 pm you wrote:
> greets!
>
> I just did a dist-upgrade (to R14 Jessie; exegnu) somewhat
> incorrectly, it made a lot of changes I hadn't intended but that's
> user error for the most part. one error was not filtering out stuff I
> consider junk, for instance 'games'.
>
> I thought I'd try purging them the so-called easy way using kpackage
> but when I get set to remove kdegames-trinity, it _looks_ like
> tde-trinity will go along it. I know this has to do with
> 'meta-packages' but I don't understand the implications.
>
> one gets the same result from apt-get.
>
> I'm happy, happier in fact, to do all of this using apt-get (or
> aptitude). I'd love a magical incantation or rather guidance on how to
> formulate one to remove this junk:
>
> games
> edutainment
> education
> science
>
> f.


The meta-package 'tde-trinity'  includes quite a few other 'meta--packages' as 
depends. Use 'apt-cache depends tde-trinity' to view them. 

You can safely remove 'meta-packages'...start with 'tde-trinity' since it 
pulls in a 'full' TDE desktop enviroment.

For a slim install I start with 'tdebase-trinity' , and add as needed.
-- 
Peace,

Greg