Hey,

I want to install debain on my laptop, but I don't want to install the desktop manager. I want only a window manager on it. I also don't want the system to have any graphical login page. I thought about building a custom debian with simple-cdd, but since i don't know the exact name of packages to put on the custom iso, i coudln't do it.
Now my question is: should i build a custom iso(if yes, how?) or should I install debian and customize it after that? if I choose the later solution, which packages do i have to remove so that I don't have any graphical login, desktop manager.

thanks,

While installing debian choose install from console and then don't install gui packages.
Like Xorg, GTK+, GDM, Gnome, KDE and ...

Get the netinstall version, and install whatever you like. It fits on a 256MB flash drive with room to spare. You just need an internet connection, and it finds whatever you have easily.

Yup, I chose the netins option and added the packages on top of that. But there are a lot of packages missing.

After minimal installation, you can install required packages with synaptic.