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

[Alex Kleider]

On 2020-04-25 12:43, Rick Moen wrote:
> 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).

Am I to understand that there are packages installed by default that I 
might
not need and could remove?  There are so many packages one would have to 
do an
enormous amount of research to avoid breaking the system by mistakenly 
removing
something important.

> 
> 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.

You've often mentioned this (I've mostly seen it on the sflug list) and 
each
time I've wanted to give it a try but am daunted by not knowing quite 
how to begin.
When I look at the output of ps aux it's daunting: where to begin!

> 
> 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.)

Is systemd really so bad that it's worth changing Debian's default?
What's to be gained?