When using Calamares installer in Online-Mode it is possible to select the desired desktop environment as well as several other (more or less useful) packages.
Please let me ask which packages are absolutely mandatory in your eyes for a minimalistic but working KDE-Plasma environment with Wayland (instead of Xorg)? My guess would be something like…
Category: Base devel + common packages
base-devel
linux-headers
linux-firmware
pacman-contrib
xf86-video-vesa
xf86-input-libinput
xdg-utils
xdg-user-dirs
xdg-user-dirs-gtk (uuuh, gtk instead of qt)
gvfs
gvfs-mtp (optional for mobile phones)
gvfs-smb (optional for samba-shares)
accountservice (what does this do?)
smartmontools (optional for SSDs?)
dnsutils (mandatory for web browser?)
modemmanager (necessary?)
netctl (not necessary when using networkmanager?)
net-tools (optional networking toolkit, but useful at all?)
networkmanager (will perform nicely with plasma-nm)
usb-modeswitch (for usage of serial USB devices instead of pendrives)
dhclient (alert system for memory usage etc.?)
ethtool (optional for network scanning)
wpa_supplicant (mandatory on laptops)
dialog (actually just cosmetics, no?)
dnsmasq (firewall)
upower (mandatory on laptops)
hwinfo (optional)
firefox (you know what you get :-))
pulseaudio (will perform nicely with plasma-pa)
dosfstools (for FAT-32 pendrives)
mtools (what is this?)
openssh (useful for SSH-access to several devices)
os-prober (what is this)?
grub-tools (mandatory or just additional?)
lsb-release (seems to be a platform for third party software - mandatory?)
Category: KDE-Desktop
plasma
packagekit-qt5
fwupd (for firmware updates of machines hardware?)
python-dbus (probably useful for application message exchange?)
kdebase-meta (just optional because of KDE-refinement bloatware?)
Of course, one would need several additional packages in the final stadium (cups, VPN-support, office software like okular, ark, gvenview etc.), but for now it should remain as minimalistic as possible.
Did I miss something really important?
Or am I just stupid and should leave the Base devel + common packages category as it is, to later avoid any trouble?
If you are installing onto an older laptop or older PC I can see where you might be concerned about excess baggage.
If you are installing onto a newer PC with 16 GB of RAM or more, and a large storage device, then fooling around with the Base devel + common packages is IMHO a lot of trouble for little return. Any extra unneeded packages will just sit on the storage device as a little extra used space. If the packages are never needed, it won’t increase RAM usage, just storage space. The amount of storage space you can possibly save will probably be a very small percentage of the total storage space. Eliminating one mp4 video file will save way more storage space than all the base packages that can be eliminated. And as you stated, “is it better to leave it alone to later avoid any trouble?”. IMHO, yes.
If you really want or need to cut down on packages, do so in the KDE-Destop category.
It would be a lot of work to describe what all those packages do. It is easy enough to look them up yourself. I will go over a few of the more obvious ones:
gvfs-mtp (optional for mobile phones)
gvfs-smb (optional for samba-shares)
These are not required and will probably bring in dependencies. They may be convenient depending on what you are doing.
smartmontools (optional for SSDs?)
They are optional for all hard drives but I would recommend keeping it
dnsutils (mandatory for web browser?)
You probably want this. It includes dns tools like dig and nslookup
modemmanager (necessary?)
For cellular support
netctl (not necessary when using networkmanager?)
I would say not needed
net-tools (optional networking toolkit, but useful at all?)
Only you know what you find useful netstat is in this package, that can be useful.
dhclient (alert system for memory usage etc.?)
Isn’t it a dhcp client?
ethtool (optional for network scanning)
It is not for network scanning, it is for managing network interfaces. I would install it. If you need it later, your network might be broken and it may be difficult to install at that point.
dialog (actually just cosmetics, no?)
Usually this is a requirement of something else. It displays tui dialogs.
mtools (what is this?)
More DOS stuff
openssh (useful for SSH-access to several devices)
Useful for a lot of things.
os-prober (what is this)?
Used to detect other OSes for multi-booting
lsb-release (seems to be a platform for third party software - mandatory?)
lsb-release is just the command lsb_release and the file /etc/lsb_release. It is something present in most other Linux distros and some software will not function properly if it can’t find it. It is optional though. It is also tiny and harmless.
packagekit-qt5
Enables support for package update and installation via discover and other qt applications
fwupd (for firmware updates of machines hardware?)
Yes
python-dbus (probably useful for application message exchange?)
You only need this if something else depends on it.
kdebase-meta (just optional because of KDE-refinement bloatware?)
I applaud your dedication in answering what was a very cheeky question. I think we expect users to do a little research themselves rather than expect others to do it for them.
I did what he did (But with Xfce). So ended up even closer to Arch and had to install a few missing packages in the end. If you are coming from Arch, or want to be as close as possible, having to install individual packages you forgot to activate a function over say the first week of usage is nothing new.
Two guys go into a hardware store and both buy the exact same hammer.
One guy is a carpenter and he puts the hammer in his tool belt and uses it the next day, framing a house.
The other guy takes his hammer home, gets out some 100,000 grit wet sandpaper and polishes the metal to a shiny mirror finish. Then he acid etches his initials on one side, and etches a Tiger’s head on the other side. Then he hangs it on his work shop wall and admires his work.
So, which guy is right and which guy is wrong? The answer is: neither is wrong and both did what was right for them.
Yes, for sure! Thank you very much for your intense efforts and your help! It seems I could even remove more packages than expected…
I am very sorry if my question appeared like “too lazy to check by himself”. I have tried to understand the impact of the mentioned packages by their descriptions, but unfortunately I’m not that much into networking to understand in detail what they do.
It seems I could even remove more packages than expected… 