On Fri 19 Jun 2020 at 15:12:27 -0600, Tom Dial wrote: > I notice that tasksel (= /usr/bin/tasksel) is a Perl program in which it > appears the "cmd" to be executed once selections are made (line 24 from > the end) is > > apt-get -q -y -o APT::Install-Recommends=true -o \ > APT::Get::AutomaticRemove=true -o APT::Acquire::Retries=3 install > > I suspect that has something to do with the apparent fact that tasksel > ignores "recommends=false" from other sources. I also suspect that > editing that line would change the behavior in the desired direction. > >From long-standing practice and inclination I have no wish to test this, > but someone else might. > > I assume this would need to be done by skipping tasksel during > installation of the d-i minimal system, then altering and running the > installed tasksel after the post-install reboot.
This post deserves a gold star; Richard will be over the moon to discover that an uncluttered install of Debian 10 with MATE desktop is possible when using d-i. There is no need to run an altered tasksel script after the post-install reboot. /target/usr/bin/tasksel can be edited after the base system is installed and "true" changed to "false". Does it work? Would I be writing this if it didn't? -- Brian.