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

[Michael Paoli]

> From: "Alex Kleider" <akleider at sonic.net>
> Subject: Re: [conspire] More relevant to the origins of this list.
> Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2020 14:06:38 -0700

> 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.

Sure.  E.g. nano, a mostly highly annoying editor for anyone who knows how
to use real editors like ed, ex, vi/nvi/vim/emacs/...
So, let's see, not 10.x but, for illustration purposes, 9.x (9.9)
... mostly just 'cause I have it handy, and it's well ... small - yes
that's the name of the VM and the hostname.
$ sudo virsh start small --console
...
# cat /etc/debian_version
9.9
# hostname
small
#
So ... packages ...
# cat /etc/debian_version
9.9
# hostname
small
# dpkg -l | awk '{if($1=="ii")print$2;}' | wc -l
266
# # (for p in $(dpkg -l | awk '{if($1=="ii")print$2;}'); do apt-cache  
show "$p" | grep '^Priority: '; done) | sort | uniq -c | sort -bnr
     125 Priority: optional
      65 Priority: required
      63 Priority: important
      49 Priority: standard
      10 Priority: extra
#
One can always see what would go if one removes a package, e.g.:
# apt-get -s --purge remove bind9
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer  
required:
   bind9utils dh-python file libirs141 libmagic-mgc libmagic1 libmpdec2
   libpython3-stdlib libpython3.5-minimal libpython3.5-stdlib mime-support
   net-tools python3 python3-minimal python3.5 python3.5-minimal
Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
   bind9*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 34 not upgraded.
Purg bind9 [1:9.10.3.dfsg.P4-12.3+deb9u5]
#
... did some selected picking off of a fair bunch of packages ...
# dpkg -l | awk '{if($1=="ii")print $2;}' | wc -l
216
# df -h -t ext4
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/vda1       2.9G  670M  2.1G  24% /
#
... and still a bootable fairly usable system, ... though exactly how
"usable" may be debatable.
I'm sure I could trim further ... but that's enough of a demo for now.