Thank you for your answer.
I've seen that live build propose a mode option with debian, emdebian or ubuntu as possible values. I just wanted to test it. The lack of support for translations is a good point. TDebs are on the way.Also, just what is the point of a Live image which has no support for translations?
debootstrap already has support to exclude specified packages.
Thanks for that. I will try to exclude the 4 grip-* meta packages. -- Jean-Christophe Saint-Marc