how can I remove mozilla and Epiphany without breaking gnome, which leads to aptitude trying to remove a bunch of other stuff? I dont really want gnomes 'help' picking a web browser, Im quite happy with firefox. is there some way to do this without picking to install everything gnome depends except those two?

Notice: I haven't tried the following suggestion myself, so this is purely speculation but I don't see any way it could do harm to your system -- unless you are "trigger happy" and accidentally press "g" twice. In this case the emergency switch to terminate aptitude is the hotkey combination "Ctrl" and "c" (pressed simultaneously).


First, you can launch aptitude and configure it NOT to install automatically "recommended" packages.

Then you can mark the "gnome" meta-package to be removed by highlighting it and pressing the "-" key. Then press the "g" key (only once).

Now aptitude lists all the packages that are planned to be removed. You can highlight any package you want to keep and press the "+" key to hold it. Start from the "gnome-core" package. After some experimenting you may or may not get the kind of gnome configuration that pleases you.

If aptitude insists on removing too many packages, you can always highlight the "gnome" meta-package and press "+" to cancel the removal. When no packages are marked to be removed it's safe to close aptitude.

I don't use gnome or kde either.
what happens when you do:

apt-get remove mozilla

does it say it will remove a lot of stuff? The more complex the wm/de the more problems.

aptitude tends to be a little more agresive that apt-get

I've also been wanting to uninstall Mozilla (but keep Firefox) and I'm afraid of dependency issues rendering Firefox inoperational. I haven't had the guts to try it out yet though, still kinda getting my feet wet with Debian's package management.

In the "graphical" mode of aptitude (also called "interactive" mode) it's easy to check which packages depend on mozilla. Just highlight the "mozilla-browser" package (under "web -> main" category) and press Enter. (Uh-oh, it lists "epiphany-browser" and "gnome-desktop-environment" -- removing mozilla while still keeping gnome might prove out to be very difficult .)

From this detailed view you can get back to normal view in aptitude by pressing "q".

well boys, it looks more and more, that XFCE4/wmaker is in the near future for you. :P

The gnome-desktop-environment is only a meta package. That is, it's just a container to group a bunch of other packages. There is no harm in removing it.

Good point. You need to avoid installing any meta packages if you want to put gnome on diet.

heh... personally ive been liking fluxbox more and more since they made their taskbar thing actually useful (0.9.x builds) but decided to try out something mainstream for a bit, if only to introduce me to some new apps i might have otherwise never come across. rhythmbox for one, i probably wouldnt have know about if i hadnt decided to try full blown gnome again

you can use fluxbox and install rythmbox. Right now i'm using wmaker (to learn it), also icewm/fluxbox, and i use ksnapshot and guarddog (firewall) from kde.

Trying different things, screwing up, making all kinds of mistakes, is very healthy for obtaining knowledge in a hurry, i know, i'm the champ at messing up my system. It has taught tons of stuff.

I understand this, I'm not a linux n00b. I've just never used debian before now. If I hadn't of installed gnome, i still wouldnt know of rhythmbox's existance, so i would have no urge to use it on fluxbox. can you see what im getting at here?

"I understand this, I'm not a linux n00b. I've just never used debian before now. If I hadn't of installed gnome, i still wouldnt know of rhythmbox's existance, so i would have no urge to use it on fluxbox. can you see what im getting at here?"

i don't use gnome, but i knew of rythmbox from reading osnews.com, don't go to China, take my word for it, there is a huge wall there.