On 10.09.20 08:13, Richard Owlett wrote:
On 09/09/2020 12:12 PM, Brian wrote:On Wed 09 Sep 2020 at 19:56:05 +0300, Andrei POPESCU wrote:On Mi, 09 sep 20, 08:27:13, Richard Owlett wrote:1. Download bandwidth or data cap constraints. {aggravated by treating "recommends" as "depends"}If you are referring to package maintainers declaring Depends on other packages where it should be just a Recommends, do note it is often a side effect of users disabling automatic installation of Recommends and then complaining about missing functionality.I believe the OP is referring to debootstrap's inability to install only Depends:.No. Apt and cousins allow not installing recommends. There was a recent thread where someone stated that option not available when installing the system. More when I wake up.
Maybe make a minimum install first, then change the global apt configuration to always apply "--no-install-recommends" as the predefined parameter if no other flag would be added by the user to the apt command, and only afterwards enrich your installation by installing the packages which you need.
You could call "tasksel" again, if you want to use the software bundle selection menu which you have seen during the initial installation. You should remind, that if in the tasksel menu deselecting all specifically named Desktop Environments (Gnome, Xfce, KDE, ...) but still selecting the top entry "Debian desktop environment" then a full blown Gnome environment will be downloaded and installed.
You could also look out for package bundles with the name prefix "task-". For instance "apt search task- | grep mate" will show you that a bundle package "task-mate-desktop" exists. "apt show task-mate-desktop" will show you the list of packages which this bundle package will draw in. Among the listed packages there might appear other bundles, therefore iterate with "apt show" through the listed package names for getting ahead some idea of all packages which would become installed.
Good Luck! Marco.