I have my Core on a NUC that sits in the cellar with no audio outputs.
Can I stop the ALSA services on Ubuntu since I’m not running any audio devices directly from the NUC? Are there any other services I can stop to run a truly minimal system?
Thank you in advance.
You can stop the the parts compiled as modules from loading, but it’ll put some maintenance burden on you. There are blacklist files for modules under /etc.
As an alternative, you could try to disable the sound chip in the bios. If it’s not detected, the drivers will not be loaded.
Also, if it was me, I’d just let things be. Let the distribution take care of the defaults. The loaded drivers that aren’t used for anything will not take that much resources.
But if you still want to aim for the extremely minimal setup, the you could compile a kernel of your own and disable everything but the absolutely needed. Believe me, there’s plenty 