XBian as Raspbian alternative - without XBMC

[zilexa]

Hi there,

I had a spare raspberry and decided to put Raspbian on it, main goal BTSync and perhaps later Owncloud.
Raspbian was a disappointment since it lacks support for NTFS, no HDParm or HD-Idle, and even the Raspbian config didn't work well: I changed the hostname using the config but only the /etc/hostname file was updated, not /etc/hosts causing problems connecting (and an error everytime I used sudo).

XBian seems to be better suited for me, less manual installations are needed, better out-of-the-box experience. Perhaps even more optimised/tweaked.

I would like to know if it is possible to uninstall XBMC (and related/required packages) in XBian, and also prevent them from being installed again when updating?

I still use Raspberries as XBian mediacenter for myself and others, I am just planning to switch to Cubox+XBian in the future and now want to start using the first spare Raspberry for other goals.