On Wed 17 Jun 2020 at 14:15:05 -0500, David Wright wrote: > 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.
Indeed I do. > 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. AFAICT, it appears Recommends are *always* installed using the Installer, irrespective of preseeding. Not *sometimes*. > > 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. That is what I do. At the same time, we have the issue that recommends=false is apparently ignored. That is the essential issue. Should he choose to, Richard Owlett will confirm that this is the case. > > > > 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. debootstrap is only run during the installation of the base system. It installs recommended packages. That is in contradiction to what the Manual says. > > 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. Base System is the set of important packages installed after partitioning is carried out.
