I tried various distros and desktop environments for a while, but eventually decided to use plain Zorin Core again. I couldn't find anything else that was easy to use and worked reliably.
So I looked for a way to make Gnome lightweight. For example, I copied gnome-software-service.desktop from /etc/xdg/autostart to ~/.config/autostart and set NoDisplay=false to disable autostart. Are there any other tips like this?
It's starting because it is coded to the calendar, which is also in the taskbar. This is what gives you your notifications on your calendar for any appointments. It's also tied to the date/time of your system. Evolution is a part of Gnome.... Yes it's a mail client, but it's tied into the system itself for other things.
If you read all the way to the bottom of that link someone was smart enough to put a warning about removing all the services of Evolution. And that's also referring to the Mate DE not the Gnome Zorin has.
Word of caution, just blindly following postings removing things not for your DE can cause havoc on your system. All for what? To save a millisecond of a millisecond of nothing.
That's not even remotely the same thing as integrating a calendar into the system.
As long as people do and then don't expect others to fix their systems later.
But it's not only about you, it's about others reading the links/postings and following them, then messing up their systems because they followed really bad postings.
So a calendar along with date/time shouldn't be included because you look at your phone and you're equating this with forced software like MS.......
But whether you use it or not, you're missing the underlying point that it is tied to the system itself and many more people actually want the calendar/date/time then don't. Perhaps Gnome isn't the DE for you, I know it wasn't for me so I switched.