[conspire] More relevant to the origins of this list.

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Alex Kleider (akleider at sonic.net):

> Again, in case anyone is interested: with X and fluxbox (and a few
> other things to fullfill all my needs) my results are:
> cat /etc/debian_version; free; df -h
> 10.3
>               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache
> available
> Mem:        3935164     1668544     1788028       93960      478592
> 1947616
> Swap:       4085756      509904     3575852
> Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> udev            1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /dev
> tmpfs           385M   11M  374M   3% /run
> /dev/sda1       225G  3.9G  210G   2% /
> tmpfs           1.9G   60M  1.9G   4% /dev/shm
> tmpfs           5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
> tmpfs           1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
> tmpfs           385M  8.0K  385M   1% /run/user/1000

Well done, sir!  That looks like a properly sparse desktop system by 
modern standards.  Although you could (further) substantially reduce
that 3.9GB of disk usage on the root FS by removing some non-essential
packages, there's no point in wearing the hair shirt in these matters if
you have modern amounts of disk space at hand (which you obviously do).

If interested in further exploring of the 'sparse system' question, one
way to proceed would be to study the full process list (like, 'ps auxw'
output) and make sure you know why (and if) you need each process -- and
make sure you know how & why they were spawned.

The Debian 10 default init system is, as mentioned, systemd, but 
(if desired) you can step sideways to a different init, as I've
detailed at http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Debian/openrc-conversion.html
(Footnote #3 lists other Debian-packaged init systems.)