Richard Owlett <rowl...@cloud85.net> writes: > Long term goal: *personal* definition of a minimalist Debian > > current goal: grok how packages interact
http://www.macfreek.nl/memory/Dependency_Graph_Debian_Packages TLDR: $ apt-cache dotty mate-desktop > dependency-graph.dot $ dot -Tpng dependency-graph.dot That either creates files named after the input or at least shows a graphic of the package you specified. I think I remember and older planet.debian.org post where someone else had done similar. Have not found it in a very short research session. Alternatively explore interactive with aptitude when you disable the solver there and pick the resulting installation by hand, and decide which suggest/recommend you follow, and which non-essential package you might even not install. Peter
