This started out simple, then I noticed I hadn't "adjusted" a machine here, so I figured I'd take the opportunity to write down everything I end up changing.  I'm a bit surprised at the results.  If I had more time (a lot more time), I'd probably be better off rolling my own distro rather than depending on (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, etc...) and doing major surgery every time I upgrade...

Most of the packages listed below (especially the OpenJDK packages) install a stack of additional recommended and/or required packages.
  VirtualBox, Mecurial, etckeeper, Bazaar, DARCS, Meld, Diffuse, F-Spot, VLC, K3b, EasyTag, screen, vim-runtime (vim-tiny is too irritating), VMWare Player, Ripper X, Epiphany-browser, Galeon, Gajim, Thuderbird, Gthumb, DOSBox, Wine (couple apps that only run that way), GNUCash, Asunder, hgsvn, id3tool, id3v2, p7zip

Lots of Codecs, including:
  flac, vorbis, theora, gstreamer-plugins-bad, gstreamer-plugins-bad-multiverse, gstreamer-plugins-good, gstreamer-plugins-ugly, gstreamer-plugins-ugly-multiverse, lame, ffmpeg, vorbisgain

If they're not already there:
  GIMP, Tomboy, OpenOffice.org, ABIWord, EVince, Firefox, BlueFish, default-jdk, openssh-server, ufw, sqlite3 sqlitebrowser, strace, tcl8.5, subversion, subversion-tools, lzma

Stuff for working with other systems:
  smbfs (for connecting to dumb NAS devices that don't do NFS), smbclient (same),

Install the following by itself with --no-install-recommends or you'll pull in a ton of fonts you'll never use:
  openjdk-6-jre

The following make the web richer, but some people don't like them:
 icedtea6-plugin, sun-java6-plugin, sun-java6-jre

The following I nearly always install, but they consume about 2.5G with the hundred or so dependencies, so don't install on a small machine or if you're not developing in Java:
  sun-java6-jdk, sun-java6-javadoc, openjdk-6-jdk, sun-javadb-client, sun-javadb-core, sun-javadb-doc, icedtea-6-jre-cacao, visualvm, rhino, rhino-doc, openjdk-6-source, rhino-doc, ant-doc, libbsf-java, libxalan2-java, javacc, junit-doc, libbcel-java-doc, libcommons-beanutils-java-doc, libcommons-digester-java-doc, libcommons-logging-java-doc, classpath-doc, libservlet2.4-java-gcj, libxerces2-java-doc, libxml-commons-resolver1.1-java-doc, libxsltc-java, libxalan2-java-doc, javacc-doc, javahelp2-doc, jetty, tomcat6, tomcat6-docs
After installing these, be sure to remove the autostart for tomcat6 and jetty, unless you're planning to run a webserver.

Some fairly useless things never to install, unless you're in a VM you don't mind getting rootkitted:
  tomcat6-admin, tomcat6-examples

Manual installs because the repos are missing or out of date (also only useful if you write software, although both support many languages):
  Eclipse (have to download direct from Eclipse because Ubuntu is 2 years! behind, and even Fedora tends to be behind)
  Netbeans (also out of date, but not nearly as bad as eclipse)

Installed to a location under my home directory:
  30+ scripts I wrote and use frequently
  A couple programs I wrote a while back
  TCLKit

Removals because Ubuntu includes a bunch of garbage I'll never want or need:
  About 20 fonts that are for languages I don't know (like Thai, Korean, Chinese, Gujarati, Minoan-C, etc...), and many of which aren't composed properly.
    A partial list is (ttf-arab.* ttf-arphic.* ttf-indic.* ttf-kochi.* ttf-lao.* ttf-saza.* ttf-thai.* ttf-unfont.*)
  Evolution (and as many of it's libs as I can, although gnome hard-depends on the worst ones...)
  Ekiga (because it depends on a bunch of absolutely horrid libraries it doesn't actually use due to poor packaging definitions).
  samba-server (I don't want to run a server for MS networking, it's a horrible protocol and I can get better results with almost anything else).

Stuff I remove because, although some people like it, I find it useless and/or irritating.
  apport, apport-gtk, app-install-data, app-install-data-partner, gnome-app-install, apturl, ubufox, eog, friendly-recovery, update-notifier, update-manager, brasero

The following list is a blanket scrub because nearly all desktop distros dump stuff in the system that is either useless to me, or should never be part of a default desktop install (like Apache).
  This list is *NOT SAFE*, and may *destroy* the usability of your system, so don't try to run it blind, you've been warned.
      procmail.* bsd-mailx akonadi-server apache2.* asterisk.* bluetooth bluez.* claws-mail.* epiphany-browser-dbg evince-dbg evolution.* gnome-pilot.* guile.* jpilot.* gnome-dbg gimp-dbg kaddressbook kdepim.* knotes korganizer kphone kpilot libakonadi.* libc6-dbg libcurl3-dbg libdata-dump-perl libdbd-mysql-perl libdbi-perl libegroupwise.* libedata-book.* libedata-cal.* libexchange.* libevview.* libevdocument.* libgoffice-dbg lib.*-dbg linphone.* mobile-.* mlock lynx.* metamail nautilus-dbg nautilus-sendto network-manager.* nickle ohphone oidentd openser.* php-pear php.* pidgin.* pilot.* postgresql.* python-dbg python-.*-dbg ser ser-.* siproxd smartdimmer sylpheed.* totem-dbg twinkle unalz ure valac vpb.* wireless.* wpa.* wwwconfig.* yate gxine libxine xine.*

Stuff I wish I could remove, but improper dependencies prevent it:
  update-notifier-common (because network-manager depends on it instead of recommending it)
  wpasupplicant, wireless-crda, wireless-tools (same)
  update-manager-core (because computer-janitor depends on it instead of recommending it)
  toshset, laptop-detect, laptop-mode-tools (because acpi-support stupidly depends on these instead of recommending them)
  launchpad-integration (because K3B depends on it for absolutely no reason at all)

I also wish I could remove cups-server without loosing printing support (but cups isn't modular enough for that), so I just have to put in routing rules to ensure that only localhost can connect to it...


Stephen wrote:
> So what is your list of apps that you install, every time on a new
> machine, the handful of things that you "must" have and find yoruself
> apt-getting yum installing or emergeing?
>