In the past there was a rule to get a basic but usable system up with base group and core repo (=cd iso image).
On the installation medium we are able to define an arbitrary list of packages. For a long time the editor of choice seems to have been vim.
Do you have a link to anything that was decided by the Arch Devs on the topic of what should be in [core] in the past? I guess I should have looked for that first, but I'm not aware of anything specific in the wiki at least. Somewhere in the old mails there is probably something stated on how [core] was handled.
My rationale for slimming down [core] is to only have things in there that are required for running the most minimal Arch system and for building packages.
I don't think this is the right approach here. We should consider [core] will be the repository only devs will have full access, including the testing stage. Mission critical packages should be in [core]. Also it should give you a decent linux console system, with which you can handle your tasks . greetings tpowa -- Tobias Powalowski Arch Linux Developer & Package Maintainer (tpowa) https://www.archlinux.org tpowa@archlinux.org Archboot Developer https://bit.ly/archboot St. Martin-Apotheke Herzog-Georg-Str. 25 89415 Lauingen https://www.st-martin-apo.de info@st-martin-apo.de