I love Linux – usually for being quite slim. But on the other hand, using a really minimalist install on debian 9, I need to add a few packages to get around.

• openssh-server – provides me ssh access
• net-tools – contains netstat
• ca-certificates – without that package I have to download without certificate checks
• apt-transport-https – allowing repositories like mariadb
• open-vm-tools – I’m usually running things on a VMware

Anything else is usually pulled in by dependencies of the actual packages needed.