One weird trick to debloat apt-based distros
recommended dependencies bad
2020-07-07
In apt(1), the package manager for Debian and its derivatives, packages may have “optional” and “recommended” dependencies. By default, the recommended dependencies are installed automatically, as if they are required.
This led to an absurd situation on my minimal server installation of
Devuan. When I went to install openssh-server, it wanted to pull in
almost 200MB of other random packages, including a bunch of graphical
desktop packages for X11!
If you don’t want these recommended packages, here’s how to stop them from being installed. Create the following file:
/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99_norecommends
and add these contents to it.
APT::Install-Recommends "false";
APT::AutoRemove::RecommendsImportant "false";
APT::AutoRemove::SuggestsImportant "false";
Then do apt autoremove to remove already installed recommends.
Just for fun, here’s what my autoremove prompt looks like after
installing just openssh-server, mosh(1), and man-db:
The following packages will be REMOVED:
adwaita-icon-theme apparmor at-spi2-core bzip2 dbus dbus-x11
dconf-gsettings-backend dconf-service dictionaries-common efibootmgr
elogind emacsen-common file fontconfig fontconfig-config
fonts-dejavu-core glib-networking glib-networking-common
glib-networking-services grub-efi-amd64-signed
gsettings-desktop-schemas gtk-update-icon-cache hicolor-icon-theme
iamerican ibritish ienglish-common ispell krb5-locales libapparmor1
libatk-bridge2.0-0 libatk1.0-0 libatk1.0-data libatspi2.0-0
libavahi-client3 libavahi-common-data libavahi-common3
libcairo-gobject2 libcairo2 libcolord2 libcroco3 libcups2 libdatrie1
libdbus-1-3 libdconf1 libepoxy0 libfontconfig1 libfribidi0
libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 libgdk-pixbuf2.0-bin libgdk-pixbuf2.0-common
libglib2.0-0 libglib2.0-data libgraphite2-3 libgtk-3-0 libgtk-3-bin
libgtk-3-common libharfbuzz0b libicu63 libjbig0 libjpeg62-turbo
libjson-glib-1.0-0 libjson-glib-1.0-common liblcms2-2 libmagic-mgc
libmagic1 libmpdec2 libpam-elogind libpango-1.0-0 libpangocairo-1.0-0
libpangoft2-1.0-0 libpixman-1-0 libpolkit-agent-1-0
libpolkit-backend-1-0 libpolkit-backend-elogind-1-0
libpolkit-gobject-1-0 libpolkit-gobject-elogind-1-0 libproxy1v5
libpsl5 libpython3-stdlib libpython3.7-minimal libpython3.7-stdlib
libreadline7 librest-0.7-0 librsvg2-2 librsvg2-common
libsoup-gnome2.4-1 libsoup2.4-1 libsqlite3-0 libthai-data libthai0
libtiff5 libwayland-client0 libwayland-cursor0 libwayland-egl1
libwebp6 libx11-6 libx11-data libxau6 libxcb-render0 libxcb-shm0
libxcb1 libxcomposite1 libxcursor1 libxdamage1 libxdmcp6 libxext6
libxfixes3 libxi6 libxinerama1 libxkbcommon0 libxml2 libxmuu1
libxrandr2 libxrender1 libxtst6 mime-support os-prober policykit-1
policykit-1-gnome publicsuffix python3 python3-minimal python3.7
python3.7-minimal shared-mime-info util-linux-locales wamerican
x11-common xauth xdg-user-dirs xz-utils
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 131 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 211 MB disk space will be freed.