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
