I need to have a system for following uses:

* XFCE desktop
* Web browsing
* Libreoffice
* Printer, scanner
* Vim for text files
* Python programs

I would like to avoid installing Calligra and would install Libreoffice later.

Which package sets can I omit while installing?

I think I will need A, ap, D, L, N, X
And I think I can safely omit E(emacs), T(latex), Y(games) and KDE (earlier mentioned GNOME here by mistake).

Can I omit GNOME also if I want to install XFCE?

By Gnome, I assume you mean KDE. You can probably omit that. LibreOffice isn't officially part of Slackware but you can get it from Eric's Alien repo.

Yes, I have corrected the error in my question above. Thanks.

There is no GNOME.

Personally, I'd just install everything... particularly if you're a newbie. It means you end up with a 16Gb installation, but we live in an era where multi-terabyte SSDs are normal.

The're quite a few links when searching for "minimal Slackware installation"...

I don't really want "minimal". I want XFCE desktop, which is of reasonable size. I just want to avoid unneeded packages.

The best course of action is to install everything, then just select XFCE as your desktop.

I realize that this is the ideal approach for Slackware. But for the parts of the world where still the desktops may be old and of limited space, there should be an official guide for installing XFCE desktop (which needs considerably less resources than KDE) while safely avoiding packages which are not essential.

I am aware of this link, but it gives instructions to install XFCE on top of existing installation and does not mention if any packages can be omitted.

You're joking right? Where are these desktop computers with hard drives smaller than 20 gigs?

Desktops or laptops in developed countries may have limited capabilities, not just space but memory, speed etc also. Newer KDE on a relatively older system can be very slow, especially if many background utilities are active.

Also, governments and social organizations trying to provide computer systems on a large scale will benefit with even a small reduction in requirements. OLPC (One Laptop Per Child, a program that began at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is one such project.

I have been using Debian+XFCE with much satisfaction and want a similar Slackware system now because Slackware has many advantages. SalixOS is one such attempt but is dormant now.

Yes yes and the "minimal Slackware installation" will help you see, what *is* needed...

If I was in this need I would have a look at what Alien Bob do with his live systems : his stripped down xfce iso (or/and lean) might be a good start.

You could also have a look at some slackware derivated distributions.

I do this sort of thing all the time for ARM devices, where storage space is often limited.

KDE is the most obvious one, I rarely install that set.

What you mentioned is a good start. You might want some of the packages from XAP though.

You can also be more picky with the D set.

Specifically, if you do not need rust, that is the largest package in the D set. Removing it saves you 846M.

You might also be able to get away without the kernel-source package, the K set. Although, some things expect that to be there when you build third-party packages. It depends on what you plan to build. If you only plan to develop in Python, you might not need the kernel source either.

Another large-ish package from the D set that you might not need (depending on your actual use case details) is glibc-i18n, but you might want that for international support if/when you ever build packages.

If you only plan to use Firefox, you can remove Seamonkey. You can also remove Thunderbird if you do not need a GUI mail client.

And, honestly, even on my small systems, I usually install everything else that has not already been mentioned. Most of the other packages are small enough and useful enough to keep. I have also been known to remove noto-cjk-fonts-ttf just because of the sheer size of that one, but I think it is needed if you want the full set of fonts for your desktop experience.

By focusing on the large packages you do not need that other packages do not depend on, you can wind up with most of the functionality of a "full-install". By doing the above, I can fit an "almost-full-install" with XFCE and Firefox into about 10GB of space, give or take.

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Thanks @shelldweller for a detailed description. I am sure it will be very useful to many.

I also want to omit installing Calligra (and would install Libreoffice later). Do I need to take any precautions here?

You are very welcome. Calligra is part of the KDE set. Nothing else depends on it. So when I omit KDE, I am omitting Calligra by default. And, in general, "end-point" packages like that are usually okay to remove. Something like a library or a base package that many other packages depend on can be tricky to remove, but top-level stuff like web-browsers and office suites are usually not dependencies of other packages. In short, Calligra is totally safe to remove without system-wide consequences in my experience.