Victor Sudakov wrote: > A production system, especially a desktop system, tends to accumulate > unnecessary packages. Users install software for testing, then forget > about it, or it falls into disuse... > > In FreeBSD, you can always run "pkg delete -a" and return to the > post-install state (well, almost). This command will remove all the > third-party packages added to the base system after installation > (modified files under /usr/local/ will remain). > > What's the procedure for Debian?
There is no pristine state for Debian. Choices made during installation affect what the first boot experience looks like. apt remove will uninstall a package. apt purge will uninstall a package and try to remove any configuration it has left behind. dpkg -S will tell you what package a file belongs to. apt-cache rdepends will tell you what other packages depend on an installed package. /var/lib/apt/lists/* has package information; if you grep for Priority: required you will find packages that *must* be installed. The ranking is: required > important > standard > optional > extra -dsr-