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

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Alex Kleider (akleider at sonic.net):

> Am I to understand that there are packages installed by default that I
> might not need and could remove?

Heck yes.

> 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 you attempt to remove a package with the 'Essential' attribute
(without simultaneously furnishing a functional equivalent), you will be
asked confirmation with a quite dire warning that you risk system
breakage.

> 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!

Sure.  ;->

The last column is the process name.  '%MEM', 'VSZ', and 'RSS' are three
metrics about memory usage.  'PID' is the process ID.  'USER' is the
effective user the process is running as.

Start there, I guess.  Figure out what each process is and why the
Gehenna you're running it.  Odds are, many of them will prove to be
non-essential.

How does one know that a process is non-essential?  From an operational
perspective, a non-essential process is one that you don't miss if you
terminate it.  

I'll stress again that it's not necessary to do that exercise (figuring
out what the various processes are for, and why you want to run each, if
that is the case).  I was suggesting you might wish to do so, if you
want to learn more about how to run a sparse system.  No puppies suffer
if you don't, though.

There's a command-line option to specify to the 'ps' command which
output columns to display and which to omit.  I just cannot be arsed to
remember details and always have to look that up.  For example, 'ps
auxw', for all that it's ridiculously verbose, omits which GID (group
ID) the process runs as:  Sometimes, you end up needing to know that,
and then you look up the pain-in-the-neck method of specifying output
columns explicitly.

The 'ps' tool in Linux bears some of the scars of Unix's tortured
history, e.g., 'ps auxw' is a BSD-style command syntax.  There is also a
SystemV-style syntax, like 'ps -ef' (note hyphen as command-switch
delimiter).  You know the old joke about standards, right?
https://xkcd.com/927/


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

I don't do 'advocacy arguments', Alex.  

I merely mentioned that there are several init systems packaged by
Debian.  Some are much sparser than others (possibly more in line with
your apparent aim of running a sparse system, e.g., systemd is exactly
nobody's idea of sparse, ever).

Some people (not me) passionately hate some specific init systems and
love specific others.  You'll find their writings all over the Internet
-- exactly none of it from me.

As mentioned on my page about picking one's own choice of init system in
Debian and making it stick, I personally am a bit fond of the OpenRC
init (developed originally by Gentoo).  But when people say 'OK,
then, convince me I should run OpenRC', I say 'No thank you' if I'm
feeling reasonably polite, or something more ascerbic if not.  ;->