Is there a way? No, not really. We can, however, lessen the pain. Screenshots would also help with problems 1 and 4. If you're planning on using KDE regularly it is probably worth letting it do what it wants.

1. This can usually be fixed by removing any .gtkrc or .gtkrc-2.0 files in your home folder and logging out and logging back in.




2. Don't install the recommends and suggests. Run:

   
   
   

   sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop  
   
   

   
   
   

   See all that stuff it wants to install? On my Trusty install it said:

   
   
   

   0 upgraded, 408 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
   
   Need to get 190 MB of archives.
   
   After this operation, 662 MB of additional disk space will be used.  
   
   

   
   
   

   Ouch! That's a lot! Instead use:

   
   
   

   sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends --no-install-suggests kubuntu-desktop  
   
   

   
   
   

   That lowers things down to:

   
   
   

   0 upgraded, 204 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
   
   Need to get 110 MB of archives.
   
   After this operation, 358 MB of additional disk space will be used.  
   
   

   
   
   

   Much more reasonable. Granted, those recommended and suggested packages are there for a reason, you might find a few quirks, but everything in general should work in general.




3. That would be the plymouth-theme-kubuntu-logo and plymouth-theme-kubuntu-text packages.

   
   
   

   Either remove them, (with apt, etc) or run:

   
   
   

   sudo update-alternatives --config default.plymouth  
   
   

   
   
   

   and pick the one you want to use.




4. Again, screenshots would help. Probably depends some on the theme too. Making sure your Unity theme is set to Ambiance and doing step 1. should help some.