On Wed 17 Jun 2020 at 18:15:49 (+0100), Brian wrote: > > On Wed, Jun 17, 2020 at 06:51:18AM -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:
> > > Clarification of my immediate goal: > > > > > > Using the ISO of DVD1 I wish to install Debian with "recommends" > > > disabled during the installation process. > Section 5.3.2 of the Installation Guide has the preseed option > > recommends=false > > as the way of disabling recommended packages: > > By setting this option to false, the package management system > will be configured to not automatically install "Recommends", > both during the installation and for the installed system. > > My observations indicate that the first claim does not work for > installing the base system or additional software, but the second > configuration is carried out. I presume that by "second configuration" you mean that the installer leaves the desired option in /target/etc/apt/ when it quits. What's visible from the installer's logs is that Recommends are sometimes installed, and sometime not, and that it's controlled by the commandline, overriding any configuration inserted into either of /target/etc/apt/ or /etc/apt/¹. Of course, I have no idea how the d-i constructs those commandlines. > It seems me that Richard's goal is unachievable. To me, it would make a little more sense to examine the installed system at length and see what can be taken out. I think the "OP" already has received methods of determining "top-level" packages. > > > The purpose is to determine if I want to do future installs debootstrap. > > > I attempted to use debootstrap a few years ago and understand it > > > will take some time/effort to learn it. AFAICT, all installs run debootstrap, but under the hood. But having learnt it, perhaps you'll be able to unpick its logs better than I can. > Section 6.3.5 of the Installation Guide says: > > For technical reasons packages installed during the installation > of the base system are installed without their "Recommends". > > I observere this is not correct, irrespective of "recommends=false". I don't know exactly what they mean by "base system". It's certainly true that one step is carried out with --no-install-recommends set: it's large (wrt number of packages), replaces the kernel that has just been installed previously (with its Recommends) and performs an upgrade. Perhaps that is all that's meant. ¹ I think the latter would only affect the d-i itself, and that system's configuration gets thrown away at exit. Cheers, David.
