On Sun, Apr 20, 2025 at 12:48:08PM +0200, Simon Josefsson wrote: > Josh Triplett <j...@joshtriplett.org> writes: > > > And the extra symlinks in `/etc/alternatives` don't take much size; I > > agree you don't need update-alternatives, but then, you also don't > > strictly need the entire dpkg and apt packages, if you're already > > omitting their files under /var/lib. > > Right -- has anyone considered if Debian should have official containers > without apt and dpkg? I think that for many use-cases for containers, > apt and dpkg will not be used and just take up space. Guix packs > (containers) doesn't get Guix installed unless you specify that as a > package you want to have installed (which is usually not necessary), so > something like this should be possible.
The tricky part of that would be that you then couldn't use that container image as a base and install any further packages. Offering a "stock" container image without dpkg and apt would mean that the container image has to *already* have everything installed that people using the container need. (By contrast, if someone is installing their own container they could then finalize it by removing dpkg and apt and other things not needed at runtime.) I think it's a good idea to support this case, but I would ideally want to support it in tools that people use to build containers. For instance, suppose we had an mmdebstrap option to purge dpkg and apt and associated paraphernalia, after installing everything needed. On a slightly related note, one of these days I'd love to figure out how we could stop systematically installing /usr/share/lintian/overrides *in binary packages*, and move them to some form of metadata that doesn't get installed. It's easy enough to exclude that directory, but doing so shouldn't be necessary in the first place; those overrides only have value when running lintian on the package, not when installing the package normally.
