Re: What else must I do to avoid installing "suggests"? Was: How to get a "minimal font set"?
On Sun, 06 Mar 2016, Kynn Jones wrote:
> Thank you for all your comments and suggestions.
>
> My interest in this question stems from the fact that I'm getting
> ready to do a full reinstallation of my system, and I don't want to
> repeat my previous mistakes.
>
> My concern is that the unwanted packages could have landed in my hard
> drive when the system was first installed, even though I kept my
> choices at the time very minimalistic. (E.g. whatever the Debian
> installer uses for installing packages has the equivalent of
> `APT::Install-Suggests "1"` or `APT::Install-Recommends "1"`.)
>
> [snip]
To achieve a minimal system to build off of:
1. Choose Expert Mode
2. Install ONLY the Base System (terminal only) -- no X or GUI, etc.--
to begin with.
This should get you a terminal only set up with networking, apt-get
plus minimal repo sources list, and only a basic screen font package.
Also, only dependencies and not recommends or suggests should be
installed by default.
3. Install additionally what you need -- piece by piece.
Keep detailed notes of what you did and what was installed, and
what was suggested or recommended in case you later want to install them.
4. Don't use meta-packages to install stuff. They install a lot more
than is really needed, particularly if used to install a desktop
GUI. Find the properly named package(s) to install it, and only its
dependencies.
However, be aware that some packages like LibreOffice or games install
font packages specific to those apps. They may not be
"dependencies" in the true sense of the word, but those fonts are
needed for the proper operation of the app. Usually, you can specify
they or some NOT be installed or uninstall them later.
The above is the basic outline I used to install my minimal Wheezy
system and window manager set up. If you want more detailed
instructions of what I did, let me know and I will email them to you.
Good luck.
B
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