[pizza234]

Not on my machine:

    # apt install asciidoc
    Reading package lists... Done
    Building dependency tree... Done
    Reading state information... Done
    The following additional packages will be installed:
      asciidoc-base asciidoc-common docbook-xsl xsltproc
    Suggested packages:
      asciidoc-doc docbook-utils source-highlight dbtoepub docbook-xsl-doc-html | docbook-xsl-doc-pdf | docbook-xsl-doc-text | docbook-xsl-doc docbook-xsl-saxon fop libsaxon-java libxalan2-java libxslthl-java xalan
    Recommended packages:
      asciidoc-dblatex xmlto
    The following NEW packages will be installed:
      asciidoc asciidoc-base asciidoc-common docbook-xsl xsltproc

I wonder if one gets that dependency tree on a Wayland-only setup.

[zh3]

You probably have X and Wayland installed (quite why those are required for asciidoc is a question I'll leave for others).

[pizza234]

A lot of dependecies are pulled from the (recommended) asciidoc-dblatex package, which depends, indirectly, on x11 packages. Don't install the recommended packages (whose concept is anyway in conflict with keeping a system lean) and see what happens.

[zh3]

How to not install recommended packages? (there wasn't a choice, and anyway not installing recommended packages often implies - rightly or wrongly - security risks).

[pizza234]

The `apt` tool provides the option `--no-install-recommends`.

If you want to disable the recommended packages installation by default, you can:

  echo 'APT::Install-Recommends "0";' > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99disable-recommends.conf

You may also want to disable the suggested packages:

  echo 'APT::Install-Suggests "0";' >> /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99disable-recommends.conf

[pizza234]

Regarding the apt "recommended" concept, it's a generic concept of optional functionality; it's orthogonal to security. If one wants to make a generic association with security, less recommended packages -> less functionality -> smaller attack surface.