What packages are safe to uninstall to reduce installation size?

Question

Possible Duplicate:
How can I turn my desktop Ubuntu 8.04 into a command line only install?

This question is similar to a previous question I asked How can I turn my desktop Ubuntu 8.04 into a command line only install?. I was wondering if anyone can recommend any other bulky packages from the standard 8.04 installation that can reduce the size on disk of my installation. All I really require is socket functionality, g++ and gcc, some kind of text editor and SSH client and server.

Things that I don't require are things like media players, audio packages, and the more "superficial" kind of desktop niceties. Is there anything particularly large in a standard install that is safe for me to remove without compromising my requirements above? I am a bit apprehensive about trying to uninstall items and I am not totally confident about removal of particular things having a negative effect on the functionality of any other things I might need (an example is would it be safe for me to remove everything to do with Perl, or does the system/kernel/other processes require this) ???

Basically I would like to be left with the kind of items that would have been installed in the CLI version of 8.04 (had the alternative iso image not been faulty).

Any help/suggestions would be gratefully received.

Are you really still using 8.04? Nothing wrong with it, just making sure. — Tom Brossman, Jul 02 '12 at 22:23
Is the server version still too big? This similar question & answer recommends installing it and add only what you need. — Tom Brossman, Jul 02 '12 at 22:43
OK I will attempt that if I dont get any other answers. I have spent weeks on this so far so to be honest just stripping out some large needless apps (office stuff, firefox, mail etc) will probably suffice. — mathematician1975, Jul 02 '12 at 22:50
just curious ... What would you want to do with your very small installation. Are you trying to fit it somewhere ? — josinalvo, Jul 03 '12 at 03:10
Have you tried removing the pkgs suggested in the accepted answer to your near-duplicate question? — ish, Jul 03 '12 at 05:12
Actually the old answer works fine for 8.04 - I was just looking for further possible things to remove. Unfortunately (fortunately) I have managed to successfully upgrade to 10.04 so I will delete this question shortly. — mathematician1975, Jul 03 '12 at 09:32
This question actually is exactly what I need to know. I am using Ubuntu on an 8GB sd card and only need the GUI for VLC and firefox for use as a kiosk at work. — traisjames, May 27 '14 at 23:28

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 03 '12 at 03:06

You should not be too afraid of removing packages. After all (if apt is still working, you still have an internet connection and some other conditions) you can always reinstall whatever is accidentally removed

To obtain a list of big packages installed, you might want to use wajig: just install it and then run

wajig large

(docs for wajig may be found at http://www.togaware.com/wajig/)

What packages are safe to uninstall to reduce installation size?

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