Your concern is not unusual (I use to think this way, a long time ago), but it is not particularly rational, either. Keep in mind that just because you do not understand what the purpose of something is does not mean it does not have one. If you try the minimal build with Arch, you will likely end up with 1 - 1.5 GB anyway. Beyond that, there's not really much fat. The base Raspbian install is less than 2 GB, but if you remove all the GUI stuff, you might free up 4-500 MB. The only thing it will do for you is free up some space. Removing packages that you are not using will not improve performance. Beware that it is aimed at more advanced/knowledgeable users. However, if you are really dedicated to this approach, you are better off starting with Arch than Raspbian. Pulling it down to some theoretical bare minimum and then adding whatever you want back in will be more trouble than just removing the things you know you do not want. If you mean, just the bare minimum plus whatever you need to make it a server, this begs the question, 'What kind of server?'. If you mean, the bare minimum to have a running system, then that wouldn't include things that make it a 'server'. No, since 'non-essential' is hugely subjective. Is there a command that I can run to clean up (uninstall) all non essential packages

Raspbian wolfram