On Fri, Mar 28, 2025 at 07:33:37AM -0400, Walter Dnes wrote:
> So I installed icewm and "removed" xfce4. I tried both purge and
> autoremove, but there's still a bunch of xcfe4 stuff hanging around.

    $ apt-cache search xfce4
    xfce4 - Meta-package for the Xfce Lightweight Desktop Environment

A meta package is simply a package that pulls in other
packages. It does not contain program or data files
beyond the usual package metadata.

When you remove the xfce4 metapackage, the other xfce
packages it installed are still on your system.

--
Joel Roth