Minimal Install

Installing Zorin OS
3

You can use purge to completely get rid of whatever you don't want (assuming there isn't some dependency or reverse-dependency that prevents it... be very careful... if you see it wanting to uninstall anything that has "Zorin" or "Gnome" in the package name, halt the whole process or you'll likely bork your install).

So, for instance, say I wanted to get rid of a fictional package named RoundCalc:
sudo apt purge roundcalc

Now, let's use a real-world example... say I want to completely get rid of the package apg, but I'm not sure what would be removed along with it due to dependencies and reverse-dependencies:
sudo apt purge -s apg

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  cheese-common gnome-control-center-data gnome-online-accounts gstreamer1.0-clutter-3.0 libcheese-gtk25 libcheese8 libclutter-gst-3.0-0 libclutter-gtk-1.0-0
  libcolord-gtk1 libgoa-backend-1.0-1 libhandy-1-0 libwhoopsie-preferences0 libwhoopsie0 network-manager-gnome python3-macaroonbakery python3-protobuf
  python3-rfc3339 python3-tz whoopsie-preferences
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  apg* gnome-control-center*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 to remove and 9 not upgraded.
Purg gnome-control-center [1:3.38.6-0ubuntu1+zorin3]
Purg apg [2.2.3.dfsg.1-5]

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I know from experience that removing gnome-control-center causes problems, as well as removing network-manager-gnome and any of cheese except the user interface package. So I cannot purge apg, it is needed in order for the machine to run.

But I'm safe, because I used the  -s  flag, which simulates the operation... it doesn't actually do anything except print to the screen what it would have done.

You can find out which packages you can purge via:
sudoedit /var/lib/dpkg/status (if you have sudoedit set up)

-- or --

Right-click /var/lib/dpkg/status, select "Edit as Administrator" (if you have Nautilus Admin installed)

-- or --

sudo gedit /var/lib/dpkg/status
... do a search for 'deinstall'... those are the packages that are uninstalled but not purged.

If you want a nifty graphic of your dependencies and reverse-dependencies:

If you want a text list of your dependencies and reverse-dependencies:

If you want a list of all the packages on your system (and where you can download them from:

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