"Un-needed" packages: what's the harm in deleting these?

[jmb]

We're tightening down the 11.11 operating environment. Here are some packages that I'm thinking of removing, but wanted to hear of any possible warnings from those more experienced with these:

International (US installs only)
Keyshell (haven't researched)
PrinterMgmt (no server-connected printers)
SourceControl (haven't researched)
Spelling
TechPrintServ
Xserver (CDE would still be available "on-demand", but not part of the standard image.)

Are any of these a "no way, Jose", or are they fairly innocuous to remove?

Like always, TIA.

[jmb]

And in a semi-related question, why do some of the 3rd party packages not show up on swlist at all (like lsof, traceroute, etc.)

Is there any way of including any kind of installed software in a comprehensive listing? Thanks.

[Mel Burslan]

I can not tell you if the software packages you have listed above has any relevance in your case but we do not have any of them installed in our systems.

when it comes to tid-bits of small app.s not getting recorded in the IPD (installed product database) is mainly because some of these come with their own installetion scripts and once you run these scripts, applictaion functions but IPD has no way of getting updated. IPD only gets updateted if you install a product using swinstall.

Hope this helps.

[Dave Wherry]

I can't give a definitive answer as to whether removing those packages would have any negative impact. I can tell you what happened to me once.

Trying to gain back a little disk space on a 9GB boot disk, I rebuilt an SAP application server. I did not install any of the foreign languages. Why would I need them?

SAP would not start up unless the German file set was loaded. Apparently, in the background, SAP does some work in German.

If you are working with an older system with a small boot disk, it might be worth the effort. 36GB is the smallest disk shipping with new systems now. The file sets you are talking about are a very small fraction of the install image. Is it really worth the effort to risk getting bit in the butt later?