HowTo Remove excess packages (and should I?)

Support & Help Requests
#1

I was watching @Martin on the most recent Destination Linux podcast he was on, and one of the things he discussed was the minimal version, yet how he kept certain things (like accessibility packages and phone connection packages) and I was wondering what those packages were, and removing them (as I am the only one who uses my computer, and neither need the accessibility stuff, nor do I connect my phone to my computer, as I prefer using AirDroid for any transferring of things between my computer and phone.

And, would removing said packages cause unknown / unexpected issues with using the laptop?!?

#2

it should not cause problems unless other things depend on them, you can remove onboard and orca, I know because I already removed them, as well as the screen magnifier, not sure what it is called, there are some packages for phone support in the repositories, but I do not know if removing them would cause issues, as I have not removed them, but I doubt they would

#3

Removing packages is a good way to hose your system. I never remove them using apt or apt-get. The problem is, apt remove will remove dependencies, too.

#4

You can use apt-get autoremove to safely free-up some space.

#5

I just watch if it is going to remove anything I do not want, apt show is a nice command for not removing something you do not want (though I do not use it for that purpose much), but I guess I have become very familiar with searching, installing, and uninstalling things with apt, I have actually had more problems breaking things from the Synaptic package manager but that’s me (I refuse to ever install it for myself cause I have broken enough systems with it)

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#6

You should also consider using Anaconda to create virtual environments where you can install and/or build software. Anaconda environments can safely be deleted.