On Tue 29 Nov 2016 at 09:11:37 +0000, Rodolfo Medina wrote: > Brian <a...@cityscape.co.uk> writes: > > > On Mon 28 Nov 2016 at 21:44:00 +0000, Rodolfo Medina wrote: > > > >> When I freshly installed Debian on my present system, I chose Gnome as my > >> Desktop manager, then I switched to Openbox. To free space, now I want to > >> remove all those Gnome packages that I haven't used any more but am not > >> sure > >> what of them I may delete without perturbing the system. How can I know? > >> More > >> in general, is there a way to know what packages one is not using and so > >> can > >> be > >> removed? > > > > apt-get purge gnome gnome-shell > > apt-get autoremove > > > > And go from there with 'dpkg -l'. > > > Thanks. But, my question is: how can I be sure and safe that doing so will > not > perturbing my system?
Impossible to answer because we do not know what you mean by "all those Gnome packages that I haven't used any more". For example, is pulseaudio a gnome package? Or dosfstools? Both are installed when GNOME is installed. If the technique above removes anything of value to you make a note of it and reinstall it later to get an unperturbed system. -- Brian.