dist-upgrade: can unwanted "new" packages be prevented?

[Jeff G.]

On 07/26/2012 07:38 PM, Felix Miata wrote:
> I started 'do-dist-upgrade' (oneiric to precise) and looked at the
> packages to be removed and added. It wants to add about 6X as many as it
> wants to remove. Many "new" packages are those I long ago removed in
> order to prevent wasting bandwidth during upgrades by not allowing
> packages that will absolutely never be used. Mostly that means
> non-western fonts and anything else related using or doing anything
> non-English, but I'm sure there would be others if I had a list of
> candidates to peruse beforehand.
>
> Pinning as described onhttps://help.ubuntu.com/community/PinningHowto
> doesn't seem designed to cover a situation like this. For one thing, I
> have no list of the packages to be prevented. The do-dist-upgrade
> command scattered packages apparently in random order all over the
> screen instead of offering a nice alphabetical list I could save or print.
>
> What do other English Ubuntu users do about this waste?

Try installing the server edition, then installing only what you want.