Linux

Open Yast and mark those packages as taboo. That way they'll never reinstalled again after an update. Use zypper dup for updating tumbleweed. The zypper up its for updating openSUSE leap.

This is the most annoying thing about TW. You gotta do "zypper dup --no-recommends"

Always check the package list when updating. Tumbleweed for some reason occasionally wants to install Patterns even if they were not included to begin with. I've taken to updating with the command:

sudo zypper dup --no-recommends

to avoid installing packages/patterns I'm trying to avoid. You could probably also mask some packages so they are never installed, but I haven't looked in to that.

Hope that helps.

OpenSUSE use patterns. Groups of packages that can be selected during installation. If one of the included pattern packages is removed it will be "fixed" when updating. You can uninstall some patterns, but be careful as some may be more important than others, leaving you without a graphical interface or something like that. If you decide to do a reinstall, you can deselect a lot of patterns (search for "pattern" in the software selection section of the installer).

Are you perhaps accidentally booting from a system snapshot?

I believe OpenSUSE uses something called "meta" packages that contain a bunch of other packages. For example if there's games-meta package it will fetch a bunch of games and during update it may try to install them again. Search through installed packages and see if you have any meta ones.

Patterns almost made me skip opensuse, until I locked most of them so they won't annoy me anymore. I start with only selecting some basic patterns in the installer:

apparmor      
base          
documentation 
enhanced_base 
minimal_base  
sw_management 
x86_64_v3 

When installed, I run this in my fresh system:

# save the currently installed patterns in a variable
installedPatterns=$(zypper se --type pattern --installed-only | grep -E "(.*\|){3}" | cut -d'|' -f2 | tail -n+2)

# lock every existing pattern
sudo zypper addlock --type pattern $(zypper search --type pattern | grep -E "(.*\|){3}" | cut -d'|' -f2 | tail -n+2)

# lock every package starting with "yast"
sudo zypper addlock yast*

# unlock the patterns you had installed
sudo zypper removelock --type pattern $installedPatterns

Pro:

• Only real dependencies get installed when adding packages
• Nothing re-installs because it belongs to an installed pattern
• No need for --no-recommends

Con:

• You have to find out the packages you need yourself

For a minimal gnome install, use these packages (likely some more depending on you setup):

avahi
evince
flatpak
fwupd
gedit
gnome-calculator
gnome-disk-utility
gnome-keyring
gnome-session-wayland
gnome-system-monitor
gnome-terminal
gnome-tweaks
gnome-user-share
gparted
gtk2-metatheme-arc
gtk3-metatheme-arc
gtk4-metatheme-arc
libqt5-qtwayland
loupe
MozillaFirefox
MozillaFirefox-translations-common
pipewire-pulseaudio
qt6-wayland
sane-airscan
simple-scan
tpm2.0-tools
wireplumber-audio
xdg-user-dirs
xdg-user-dirs-gtk

Bonus tip: When removing software, use the -u flag for less bloat being left behind:

 -u, --clean-deps
       Automatically remove dependencies which become unneeded after removal of requested packages.