i share your concern over the number of packages
that seem to never be used...linux grew as an OS
for programmers, system administrators, etc., and
the major distributions include masses of "stuff"
that holds no interest for those of us who do not
live lives focused on our monitors...browsing
through the package manager (a quicker tour, than
rpm commands at the console) reminds one of the
apartments of older women who've never learned to
discard what is not in use...knick-knacks
and mementos everywhere, all of great import to
the occupant, but of little use or interest to
others...does one really need a half dozen tea
sets sitting on various end tables, or a dozen
different mail clients...
but what to discard??...i, too, would like to
trim the size of my mandrake system, but am
often unsure of which packages are essential to
its operation...a web site that detailed each
package would help...even better would be a
program within mandrake, where i could sort
through a detailed list of all packages, have all
dependency problems automatically resolved, and
then delete in mass all those i found
un-needed....i'd prefer being able to do such a
mass deletion after mandrake is up and running,
as that would allow browsing the programs, rather
than depending on the name and short description
given at installation time...ideally, i'd be able
to save "my list" of packages to floppy, and use
it at installation time if i re-install the whole
system on this or another computer...
perhaps this is all possible now...perhaps some
package in mandrake accomplishes just what i've
suggested...if so, i'd like to be pointed toward
it...
frank
On Tue, 13 Jun 2000, you wrote:
> Hi,All
>
> I have a question on packages that are on Linux. Is there a web site that
> gives details of what the package is and etc?? I would like to be able to
> know what to install and what I don't need. I think I am wasting space by
> taking everything that is offered in the install.
> This way I will know what is what as to everyday use of Linux.
>
> Thanks
> Robert F. Trettel
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