There's a recent issues on GitHub (#8980) about removing "non-essential" packages from the Debian minimal template.
The argument is that minimal templates should contain only "vital packages". OP argues that a minimal system is one from which nothing can be removed without breaking anything else, and therefore the minimal templates should be trimmed accordingly. Debian has the concepts of minbase and base systems. Minbase is a variant in debootstrap - it installs only essential packages and apt. The base system, or core installation, consists of essential packages, and those tagged as required or important. The Debian minimal template is a core system, with some Qubes packages installed. In my view the minimal template contains a base system - it contains packages that any user of Debian would expect to find installed. The docs say that "The minimal templates are lightweight versions of their standard template counterparts. They have only the most vital packages installed, including a minimal X and xterm installation." It may be that Qubes wants to ship a micro template, with only selected packages installed, as well as the existing minimal templates. Or trim down minimal templates to minbase, or smaller. In either case, we would need to decide what packages should be included. Any decision should be applied for all official templates. (I should say that building with minbase in debootstrap makes very little difference once Qubes packages are installed, and that not all packages correctly set out dependencies on packages that are assumed o be present.) Thoughts would be appreciated. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "qubes-devel" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to qubes-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/qubes-devel/Zehara3tEsjq954R%40thirdeyesecurity.org.
