Bug#298702: debian-installer: Base installation is too big - should be trimmed
Package: debian-installer
Severity: minor
The installer is VERY good, but there is one are that should not be
overlooked. The basic vanilla installation (without any [x] desktop
etc. selected) downloads packages from remote site that are not used
by average user.
For example if installed through modem, the obvious question is why
does it try to update/download packages like g++, bison and various
other development tools that my dad/mom will never use.
Through slow modem connection, this is seriuos performance penalty,
just to get to the point where installer finishes and one can run:
apt-get remove g++ ...
SUGGESTION:
I was able to trim the basic installation so that these packages were
removed directly after the netinstaller had finished. The size was
200M, but I'm sure experts can squeeze out more. The list is attached
below. Comments:
- Without any [x] checkboxes marked for packages during install, the
result should be minimum system - a bare minimum.
- No dictionaries - makes no sense for foreign people
- no development tools (sharutils, g++, patch, diff ...)
- no extra documentation
COMMENT ON MTA
While the exim4 is the default MTA, please add a checkbox to bypass
installing mail system altogether. In low end machines (64M or less)
one might want to install something more simpler/lighter (e.g ssmtp
for homenetwork/family machine).
SUGGESTED REMOVE LIST
- Ignore the "ppp" in listing. I did not need it, but it should
be inlcuded in netinstall for other.
Reading Package Lists...
Building Dependency Tree...
Package vacation is not installed, so not removed
Package ipmasqadm is not installed, so not removed
The following packages will be REMOVED:
apt-utils* aptitude* bc* bin86* bison* dc* dictionaries-common* discover1*
discover1-data* doc-debian* doc-linux-text* dpkg-dev* ed* fdutils* finger*
flex* g++* g++-3.3* gcc* gcc-3.3* gdb* gnu-efi* gnupg* iamerican* ibritish*
info* ipchains* ispell* libdiscover1* libnss-db* libstdc++5-3.3-dev* m4*
make* manpages-dev* mime-support* mpack* mtools* pciutils* ppp* pppconfig*
pppoe* pppoeconf* procmail* python* python-newt* python2.3* reportbug*
tasksel* tcsh* texinfo* usbutils* wamerican* whois*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 53 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 73.9MB disk space will be freed.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.10-1-686
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ISO-8859-1) (ignored: LC_ALL set to en_US)
Reply to: