It seems to me that if you're getting more stuff installed with a given
config than you want, what you really need to do is use the customized config where you can pick and choose the bits and bytes you want.
If you really want a bare bones system, you can pick minimal from way at the bottom of customized on FC3 and I'll bet you don't get a lot of the stuff like pcmcia-cs and mDNSResponder/howl . Then add just the exact additional packages you want to the minimal config.
Unfortunately, this is not how things work, and definetely not where FC is heading.
The reason lies in Core and Base groups of packages, that are always installed (Core+Base == minimal install). While Core is more or less still small and clean (it could be a bit smaller IMHO), Base is getting more and more poluted. In FC3, Base group become ridicilous. There's so much garbage inthere. Furthermore, some of the stuff from Base will pull (because of dependencies) more packages that are not listed in Core+Base. It came to the point when minimal install includes stuff such as OpenGL libraries!? It might be middle of the winter, but we can't afford to wait for spring for big cleanup!
On an example, the size of installed Core+Base system (both number of RPMs installed, and disk space needed) has doubled since Red Hat 7.3. 99% of additional stuff is nothing but garbage that should be removed from Core and Base groups. I've filled bug report on bugzilla last November, if anybody would like to follow up:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=139364
There's also another thing tackled in that bug report. Once upon a time, it was possible to install only Core group (by doing %packages --no-base in kickstart config file). It seems that nowdays the option is ignored. As if somebody wants to force us to have bloated systems...
-- Aleksandar Milivojevic <amilivojevic@xxxxxx> Pollard Banknote Limited Systems Administrator 1499 Buffalo Place Tel: (204) 474-2323 ext 276 Winnipeg, MB R3T 1L7
