Re: Packages.

[C M Reinehr <cmr@amsent.com>]

Hi, Nuno

On Saturday 08 December 2007 12:40, Nuno Magalhães wrote:
> Hi.
>
> Whenever i install Debian, i always use the netinst and select nothing
> but the base system. Then it's apt al the way: first X, then a
> lightweight WM plus whatever i need. However, even with a "minimal"
> install there are always a bunch of packages that i didn't choose and
> that (apparently) aren't used by any other package.
>
> This time i decided to nstall X from the installer menu, so i got
> X+GNOME. I still had to work around the xorg.conf to get it working
> (framebuffer). The thing is, i'm allergic to unused packages and i
> dislike big desktop enviroments like GNOME or KDE. And i know that if
> i do apt-get remove --purge gnome* there will still be leftovers, like
> Evolution.
>
> I don't think neither apt nor aptitude (or even synaptic, another
> usual leftover) have this, but is there a way to know if a package is
> depended upon? Automagically removing it if not? Actually my favourite
> is apt, i dislike the other two.

I agree with you that the fewer packages the better. I know of no single
program which will identify and automatically remove unwanted, unneeded
packages, but two which will help are deborphan and aptitude.

Deborphan is self-explanatory and fairly straight forward to use, but WRT
to aptitude what I found helpful is: `aptitude search '~i'`. Issue this command
on the command line and you will receive a list of all installed packages such as:

i   acpid                           - Utilities for using ACPI power management
i   adduser                         - add and remove users and groups
i A akregator                       - RSS feed aggregator for KDE
i A alien                           - convert and install rpm and other packages

The "A" indicates that the package was installed automatically, presumably due
to a dependency. A more detailed examination using aptitude or
`apt-cache rdepends package_name` can show you the dependencies.

HTH!

cmr

> I'm going through the list of installed packages and their
> descriptions in the debian site, i even have a fortune-cookies
> package! Wtf? And i skipped all the lib* and x* ones... How can i get
> rid of everything gnome?
>
> Just wishfull thinking in the wrong list, but it would be nice if
> developers of mamoths like X, GNOME and KDE would develop installers
> which let you choose what you want to install and/or that only install
> componets whcih are really necessart. I already have openoffice, i
> don't need gnumeric; nor do i need  30 graphics drivers when i'll only
> use one.
>
> Any constructive suggestions would be much appreciated.
>
> --
> Fica bem, porta-te mal.
> Be well, misbehave.

-- 
Debian 'Etch' - Registered Linux User #241964
--------
"More laws, less justice." -- Marcus Tullius Ciceroca, 42 BC