Minimum version of Ubuntu Server 18.04?

Question

System administration

I want to make a minimal version of Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS that will work from a USB flash drive (maximum SSD/HDD) 24/7. To work, you only need access to the network, a console, a disk, and you also need to remove / disable all unnecessary services / logging in order to maintain performance and not kill the USB flash drive.
Can you please tell me what can be removed/disabled from Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS?
As an example, I have already removed the cloud-init and open-iscsi packages.
Thanks

Answer 1

why delete something?
if you can take the minimum version and install only what you need.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/Min...
I would advise you to start pruning packages by installing aptitude.
in it, in an interactive console, it is convenient to walk through the list of packages and figure out what is needed and what is not.
Leave if needed, delete if not needed.
if it is not clear what the package is, whether it is needed or not, then mark it as automatically delivered. if there are no packages depending on it, it will automatically be removed from the system.

Answer 2

it is also necessary to remove / disable all unnecessary services / logging in order to maintain performance and not kill the USB flash drive.

Logging should not be disabled. You can make a disk in memory and mount it in /var/log, then the flash drive will remain untouched. Understand the syslogd settings and reduce the disk space consumed by the logs to a minimum.
The same, apparently, needs to be done with / tmp and possibly with something else.
Find out the size of disks in memory empirically.
From what can be disabled - the GUI is unambiguous, this will greatly facilitate the distribution.

Answer 3

to keep working and not kill the USB flash drive.

It may be easier not to bother, and instead of a flash drive, take a regular USB SSD, and no problems with overwriting.
A SATA SSD costs about 1500 rubles, and a SATA USB3 adapter costs about 500 rubles.
As a result, a 120GB flash drive with a decent write speed and no problems with overwriting.