What packages should be installed?

Software PureOS
1

I want to make sure I have all the correct packages installed and nothing that shouldn’t be. Here is what is listed when I apt list --installed | head

accountsservice/byzantium,now 0.6.55-3 amd64 [installed,automatic]
acl/byzantium,now 2.2.53-10 amd64 [installed,automatic]
acpi-fakekey/byzantium,now 0.143-5 amd64 [installed,automatic]
acpi-support-base/byzantium,now 0.143-5 all [installed]
acpi-support/byzantium,now 0.143-5 all [installed]
acpid/byzantium,now 1:2.0.32-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
adduser/byzantium,now 3.118+deb11u1 all [installed]
adwaita-icon-theme/byzantium,now 42.0-2pureos2 all [installed,automatic]
alsa-base/amber,now 1.0.27+1 all [installed]

Are these all ok? Am I missing anything? Thanks for the help!

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2

There is no simple way to get an answer to the question, for several reasons:

  • only you know what should be installed over and above the basic distro
  • you’ve only listed the first 9 packages
  • the full list would be unreasonably long - please don’t post it

Generally, you can’t be missing any packages. That would be an integrity failure and apt would be complaining about it.

Some people think that it’s not a bad idea to blow away an entire computer and reinstall from scratch from time to time. That ensures that if any bugs have caused problems but the bugs are now fixed but the problems remain then that gets fixed up. That ensures that if you installed something that you didn’t really use / it didn’t really do the job but you didn’t deinstall it then it gets cleaned up. That ensures that if you changed some setting trying to make something work differently but it didn’t have the desired effect but you didn’t revert the setting then it gets cleaned up.

However that only really works if you reliably keep a journal about things that you install and do need, and settings that you set and do need.

Also, are you actually experiencing any problem?

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3

I subscribe to that practice for various reasons, but I also have PureOS 10.3 ‘Byzantium’ on a live USB for any one-time tasks. Since package installations on it are ephemeral, I often use it for administrative tasks such as upgrading firmware, or in a separate session, trying out new software.

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Adding to my own post, another reason to start from scratch occasionally is … config files that have been locally customised (edited) and which therefore over time differ more and more from the package maintainer’s version. You end up taking the default for more and more new settings that you don’t even know about. This can be partly mitigated by using diff at each major version change. Failing that, starting from scratch forces you to do that diff / to reapply your own changes and at least read through the config file.

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