Essential bloat [was: Debian on CDROM]

[Clint Adams <schizo@debian.org>]

> would be preferred.  This way I can get my standalone machine working
> without purchasing a million floppies.

This was ridiculous at 6 disks, but now?

 base2_2.tgz             12-Oct-1999 02:39  15.5M

debian-policy 3.0.1.1:

2.3.7. Essential packages
-------------------------

     Some packages are tagged `essential'. (They have `Essential: yes' in
     their package control record.) This flag is used for packages that are
     _essential_ for a system.


This covers packages, but not their contents.  In order to cut down the
cruft in the base system, I think we need to split the base packages into
Essential and not-so-essential components.

Let's pick on util-linux for a bit.  Fine, util-linux is Essential.
Installed-Size: 1142
And now a selection of files:

/sbin/getty

Fine, I'll buy that one.

/sbin/cfdisk
/sbin/fdisk
/sbin/sfdisk

All three essential?  Maybe not, but let's not nitpick.

/usr/bin/mcookie
/usr/bin/ddate

Only 16K, but not crucial to an installation.

I'm told that a zealous paring can get base down to a few megs.