On Wed 17 Jun 2020 at 20:48:50 (+0100), Brian wrote: > 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*.
One or two counterexamples are: openssh-server Recommends xauth ¹ popularity-contest Recommends gnupg Neither recommendation was installed until after booting, when I was installing xserver-xorg and mutt respectively. There are one or two more, like pigz and secureboot-db, but these are Recommends of Recommends, which might muddy the issue. But this is during the part of installation run through apt-get, not debootstrap, where the process is more transparent to the user, but likely uninfluenced by debootstrap options. > > > 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. OK, yes, the debootstrap installed part. I've never considered analysing any of that because I've found nothing of interest there. Does the fact that many of these packages are udebs, with different functionality from their corresponding debs, have any influence on their dependency relationships? I've never given debian-installer/binary-amd64/Packages.gz more than a passing glance. ¹ If you don't see this package being installed, it will probably be because you don't run the installer remotely through ssh after the network has been configured, my normal MO. Cheers, David.
