Ubuntu for Minimalists

Ubuntu gets a lot of flack for being stuffed with things you don't need.  In fact, it goes beyond that.  The Advanced Packaging Tool or "apt" likes to stuff a variety of useless dependencies down your throat.

As it turns out there's a way around both of those problems.  Canonical has a minimal install ISO that grabs all the packages from the web.  By default after the installation you will be left with a command line interface and nothing more.  You have the option to install various packages during the install, but it's not required.  This version of the install can also be useful because there's no need to update after the install has finished.  Everything will already be the latest version.

Now onto the next problem.  How can you get the Advanced Packaging Tool (apt) to only install what you ask?  Simple.  Create a "/etc/apt/apt.conf" file and put the following two lines in it:


APT::Install-Recommends "0";
APT::Install-Suggests "0";

Once created you wont be installing more than you need.  The one downside is there may be some extra knowledge required to install certain packages the way you want.  For example, the gvfs package isn't automatically installed when installing xfce4.  gvfs is required for various functions in xfce4 such as the trash.  For a slightly less minimal, but slightly more user friendly experience you can get rid of the "APT::Install-Suggests "0";" line you created.