Installing totem on kubuntu switches users to gnome desktop

Thank you for your comments. This does not appear to be a bug report and we are closing it. We appreciate the difficulties you are facing, but it would make more sense to raise your question in the support tracker. https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu

We briefly discussed this on #kubuntu-devel and believe this is, in fact a bug:

[16:41] <ScottK2> Any thoughts on this bug: Bug #187177 - It seems to me that it does, in fact, describe a bug and shouldn't have been converted to a question.
[16:41] <ubotu> Launchpad bug 187177 in totem "Installing totem on kubuntu switches users to gnome desktop" [Undecided,Invalid] https://launchpad.net/bugs/187177
[16:43] <Lure> ScottK2: it sounds like bug to me
[16:43] <Lure> installing totem does not mean I expect desktop will be switched
[16:43] <-- rebugger has left this server (Remote closed the connection).
[16:45] --> rebugger has joined this channel (<email address hidden>).
[16:46] <Lure> ScottK2: there is difference between apt-get and aptitude - Probably fishy Recommends
[16:46] <Lure> ScottK2: apt-get wants to in install 18, while aptitude 143 packages!
[16:48] <Lure> ScottK2: and funny, there are no recommends listed for totem...
[16:48] <Lure> might be totem-gstreamer

Switching desktops when a new application is installed is not how it's supposed to work.

For the reference, this may be releated to how aptitude works (compared to apt-get).

apt-get lists these packages to be installed:
  gnome-icon-theme gstreamer0.10-alsa gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
  gstreamer0.10-plugins-base gstreamer0.10-plugins-good gstreamer0.10-x libcdio7
  libcroco3 libgsf-1-114 libgsf-1-common liboil0.3 librsvg2-2 librsvg2-common
  libshout3 totem totem-common totem-gstreamer totem-plugins

aptitude lists these packages to be installed:
  alacarte capplets-data deborphan deskbar-applet desktop-base
  evolution-data-server evolution-data-server-common gksu gnome-about
  gnome-app-install gnome-applets gnome-applets-data gnome-control-center
  gnome-desktop-data gnome-doc-utils gnome-icon-theme gnome-media
  gnome-media-common gnome-menus gnome-netstatus-applet gnome-panel
  gnome-panel-data gnome-power-manager gnome-session gnome-settings-daemon
  gnome-system-monitor gnome-user-guide gnome-utils gstreamer0.10-alsa
  gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gstreamer0.10-plugins-base gstreamer0.10-plugins-good
  gstreamer0.10-x gvfs gvfs-backends libbeagle1 libcairo-perl libcairomm-1.0-1
  libcamel1.2-10 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio-cdda0 libcdio-paranoia0 libcdio7
  libcroco3 libebook1.2-9 libecal1.2-7 libedata-book1.2-2 libedata-cal1.2-6
  libedataserver1.2-9 libedataserverui1.2-8 libeel2-2 libeel2-data
  libegroupwise1.2-13 libexempi3 libgdata-google1.2-1 libgdata1.2-1 libgksu2-0
  libglib-perl libglibmm-2.4-1c2a libgnome-desktop-2 libgnome-media0
  libgnome-menu2 libgnome-window-settings1 libgnome2-canvas-perl libgnome2-perl
  libgnome2-vfs-perl libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd-common libgnomekbd2
  libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0 libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0
  libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgsf-1-114 libgsf-1-common libgtk2-perl
  libgtkhtml2-0 libgtkmm-2.4-1c2a libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0
  libgtop2-7 libgtop2-common libgvfscommon0 libgweather-common libgweather0
  liblaunchpad-integration0 liblpint-bonobo0 libmetacity0 libnautilus-burn4
  libnautilus-extension1 libnet-dbus-perl liboil0.3 liboobs-1-4
  libpanel-applet2-0 librarian0 librsvg2-2 librsvg2-common libscrollkeeper0
  libshout3 libsoup2.4-0 libtie-ixhash-perl libtotem-plparser10
  libtrackerclient0 libvte-common libvte9 libxml-twig-perl libxml-xpath-perl
  menu menu-xdg metacity metacity-common nautilus nautilus-cd-burner
  nautilus-data python-beagle python-cairo python-fpconst python-gconf
  python-glade2 python-gmenu python-gnome2 python-gnome2-desktop
  python-gnomecanvas python-gst0.10 python-gtk2 python-gtk2-doc python-gtkhtml2
  python-launchpad-integration python-numeric python-pyorbit python-sexy
  python-soappy scrollkeeper software-properties-gtk synaptic
  system-tools-backends totem totem-common totem-gstreamer totem-mozilla
  totem-plugins yelp

This could be related to Recommends handling, but it is still strange to pull in so many packages and then as side effect switch desktop environment.

Ok, I see. Sebastien may you take a look to it later? thanks.

That's likely due to the Recommends on gnome-control-center. Does installing gnome-control-center creates a similar situation?

I don't know... I can only test in 2 a 3 days. When I installed totem it switched to gnome desktop but only partially.... definitely gnome-look, but I couldn't move windows e.g. It took me an hour to roll back the changes to KDE

Well I tried anyway... similar behaviour installing gnome-control-center as totem.... kde switches partially to gnome.

that's not really a bug then, don't install recommends if you don't want those

Whether it's a bug or not is a little bit a gray area I think... When I tried to install totem I totally did not expect to switch from KDE to (a partial) gnome. As it is, it's very odd and unexpected behaviour for just installing an application.

You do get a huge list of "this will be installed as well", but at that time I didn't know installing the rest would switch my desktop. A lot of people would be stuck after installing totem the way it is now.

You will get the bug only using aptitude, apt-get, gnome-app-install or synaptic don't install recommends, users who decide to use a another command line software should be able to deal with their choice

that's not a totem bug, and new versions should not start gnome-settings-daemon when you don't use GNOME