[Bug 1829370] [NEW] Discuss further entries in essential which might instead be minimal

[Christian Ehrhardt ]

Public bug reported:

I was comparing and analyzing a recent docker image for more things we
could maybe drop to be more minimal.

I found a few which are in platform.git/required that we might be able
to move to minimal.

Not sure what the best practice is here to minimize the container images
- put it to minimal as recommends and then remove it in livecd-rootfs?
Anyway that would be up to you, the discussion first ...


#1 e2fsprogs
For a cloud image and anything bootable with disks - absolutely.
But for a container which by definition already comes on its FS without disk access.
I think this could be dropped.

#2 diffutils
There is no call to diff other than the references from its own docu and bzdiff/zdiff, ...
Now while we need bzip2/gunzip and such, we don't need bzdiff/zdiff.
Should that be split and removed along with diffutils?

#3 dash
The comment says "Much faster default shell" whicih is right, but bash+dash in essential.
Again probably ok for cloud-images and everything bigger, but for minimal container images one should do - which of them I don't know.


I just was curious on those three after checking the image if they might be removable.
(Triggered by danwest asking about images sizes)

** Affects: livecd-rootfs (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1829370

Title:
  Discuss further entries in essential which might instead be minimal

Status in livecd-rootfs package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  I was comparing and analyzing a recent docker image for more things we
  could maybe drop to be more minimal.

  I found a few which are in platform.git/required that we might be able
  to move to minimal.

  Not sure what the best practice is here to minimize the container
  images - put it to minimal as recommends and then remove it in livecd-
  rootfs? Anyway that would be up to you, the discussion first ...

  
  #1 e2fsprogs
  For a cloud image and anything bootable with disks - absolutely.
  But for a container which by definition already comes on its FS without disk access.
  I think this could be dropped.

  #2 diffutils
  There is no call to diff other than the references from its own docu and bzdiff/zdiff, ...
  Now while we need bzip2/gunzip and such, we don't need bzdiff/zdiff.
  Should that be split and removed along with diffutils?

  #3 dash
  The comment says "Much faster default shell" whicih is right, but bash+dash in essential.
  Again probably ok for cloud-images and everything bigger, but for minimal container images one should do - which of them I don't know.

  
  I just was curious on those three after checking the image if they might be removable.
  (Triggered by danwest asking about images sizes)

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