Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 9151
Installer ignores some packages that have been deselected
Last modified: 2008-05-01 11:37:54 EDT
I have been using Red Hat since version 4.2. All versions since then have seen fit to ignore some of my package installation choices. I have to end up going back and removing at least ten packages that I don't want, don't need and that I explicitly UNchecked when installing. Examples: kernel-pcmcia-cs apmd linuxconf rp3 pump pciutils (your quality installer installed this on a bunch of 486's that don't even have PCI buses...) raidtools (guess I can do raid with a single 200Mb IDE drive on a 486 huh?) isdn4k-utils (we're lucky to at least have POTS in this area, let alone ISDN...) There are more but I'm not sure what the whole list is, since some of these packages have dependencies which installs even more crud that I don't want. Those packages above are not required for a base install and I get a feeling that I'm installing a Microsoft operating system - I get what the OS vendor thinks I need, no matter what I tell the installer. Apolgies if this has already been addressed in other reports or in upcoming releases. I didn't see it anywhere. All I want is a Red Hat distro that I can install that won't install the graphical stuff, the X libraries, the KDE and gnome-libraries, GUI tools, and other stuff that Red Hat thinks I need installed. In the end, I want a command line only server - less wasted drive space, less stuff to upgrade, less chance for local/remote exploits. If its not already in the pipeline, a dedicated workstation and a dedicated server distribution might be a good idea - you focus on two core markets better that way. And if there's something from the workstation distro I want (like GUI tools or gnome libraries), I'll install them separately. This just got under my skin, after I upgraded three servers and had to delete a bunch of "junk" that I didn't want installed.
RP3 and isdn4k-utils were getting installed as dependencies. The remainder of the packages are indeed in the base installation. We are looking to clean up the base installation in the next release, so hopefully we will be able to cut some of the fluff out of it.