In this post, I document an overview of the various TeX Live packages available in Debian, their sizes, the faciliies they offer and the relationship between these packages. I have referred to a fresh new Debian GNU/Linux 10.0 (buster) installation while writing this post.

Package Sizes

The table below shows the size of archives that are downloaded and the additional disk space that is used for each package installed with apt-get install command. Each size displayed include the size of the package being installed and the size of all dependencies that would be installed along with it.

Package Details

• texlive-latex-base: This package contains packages that are either mandated by the core LaTeX team or very widely used and strongly recommended in practice.

  It includes 28 CTAN packages:

  ae, amscls, amsmath, babel, babel-english, babelbib, carlisle, colortbl, fancyhdr, fix2col, geometry, graphics, graphics-cfg, hyperref, latex, latex-bin, latex-fonts, latexconfig, ltxmisc, mfnfss, mptopdf, natbib, oberdiek, pslatex, psnfss, pspicture, tools, url

• texlive-latex-recommended: It contains a collection of recommended add-on packages for LaTeX which have widespread use.

  Installing this package also installs texlive-latex-base because texlive-latex-recommended recommends tipa which depends on texlive-latex-base.

  It includes 62 CTAN packages:

  anysize, beamer, booktabs, breqn, caption, cite, cmap, crop, ctable, eso-pic, euenc, euler, etoolbox, extsizes, fancybox, fancyref, fancyvrb, filehook, float, fontspec, fp, index, jknapltx, koma-script, latexbug, l3experimental, l3kernel, l3packages, lineno, listings, lwarp, mathspec, mathtools, mdwtools, memoir, metalogo, microtype, ms, ntgclass, parskip, pdfpages, polyglossia, powerdot, psfrag, rcs, sansmath, section, seminar, sepnum, setspace, subfig, textcase, thumbpdf, translator, typehtml, ucharcat, underscore, unicode-math, xcolor, xkeyval, xltxtra, xunicode

• texlive-pictures: It contains packages for graphics, pictures and diagrams including TikZ, pict, etc.

  Installing this package also installs texlive-latex-base and texlive-latex-recommended because this package depends on texlive-latex-recommended which in turn depends on texlive-latex-base.

  It includes 188 CTAN packages:

  adigraph, aobs-tikz, askmaps, asyfig, asypictureb, autoarea, bardiag, beamerswitch, binarytree, blochsphere, bloques, blox, bodegraph, bondgraph, bondgraphs, braids, bxeepic, cachepic, callouts, celtic, chemfig, combinedgraphics, circuitikz, curve, curve2e, curves, dcpic, diagmac2, ditaa, doc-pictex, dottex, dot2texi, dratex, drs, duotenzor, dynkin-diagrams, ecgdraw, eepic, ellipse, endofproofwd, epspdf, epspdfconversion, esk, euflag, fast-diagram, fig4latex, fitbox, flowchart, forest, genealogytree, getmap, gincltex, gnuplottex, gradientframe, grafcet, graph35, graphicxpsd, graphviz, gtrlib-largetrees, harveyballs, here, hf-tikz, hobby, hvfloat, istgame, knitting, knittingpattern, ladder, lapdf, latex-make, lpic, lroundrect, luamesh, luasseq, maker, makeshape, mathspic, milsymb, miniplot, mkpic, modiagram, neuralnetwork, numericplots, pb-diagram, penrose, petri-nets, pgf, pgf-blur, pgf-cmykshadings, pgf-soroban, pgf-spectra, pgf-umlcd, pgf-umlsd, pgfgantt, pgfkeyx, pgfmolbio, pgfopts, pgfornament, pgfplots, picinpar, pict2e, pictex, pictex2, pinlabel, pixelart, pmgraph, postage, prerex, productbox, pxpgfmark, qcircuit, quantikz, qrcode, randbild, randomwalk, realhats, reotex, rviewport, sa-tikz, schemabloc, scsnowman, scratch, scratch3, setdeck, signchart, smartdiagram, spath3, spectralsequences, swimgraf, table-fct, texdraw, ticollege, tipfr, tikz-3dplot, tikz-bayesnet, tikz-cd, tikz-dependency, tikz-dimline, tikz-feynhand, tikz-feynman, tikz-imagelabels, tikz-inet, tikz-kalender, tikz-karnaugh, tikz-ladder, tikz-layers, tikz-nef, tikz-network, tikz-opm, tikz-optics, tikz-page, tikz-palattice, tikz-qtree, tikz-relay, tikz-sfc, tikz-timing, tikz-truchet, tikzcodeblocks, tikzducks, tikzinclude, tikzlings, tikzmark, tikzmarmots, tikzorbital, tikzpagenodes, tikzpfeile, tikzpeople, tikzposter, tikzscale, tikzsymbols, timing-diagrams, tqft, tkz-base, tkz-berge, tkz-doc, tkz-euclide, tkz-fct, tkz-graph, tkz-kiviat, tkz-linknodes, tkz-orm, tkz-tab, tsemlines, tufte-latex, venndiagram, visualpstricks, xpicture, xypic

• texlive-fonts-recommended: This package contains the recommended fonts, including the base 35 PostScript fonts, Latin Modern, TeX Gyre and T1 and other encoding support for Computer Modern, in outline form.

  Installing this package also installs texlive-latex-base because it is one of the dependencies of this package.

  It includes 24 CTAN packages:

  avantgar, bookman, charter, cmextra, courier, ec, euro, euro-ce, eurosym, fpl, helvetic, marvosym, mathpazo, manfnt-font, mflogo-font, ncntrsbk, palatino, pxfonts, rsfs, symbol, times, txfonts, utopia, wasy, wasy2-ps, wasysym, zapfchan, zapfding

• texlive: This metapackage provides a decent selection of the TeX Live packages which should suffice for the most common tasks.

  This is a metapackage, i.e. it does not include any CTAN packages of its own. It merely depends on texlive-latex-base, texlive-latex-recommended and texlive-fonts-recommended. In other words, apt-get install texlive would be a convenient way to install a trimmed down TeX Live distribution with all the recommended CTAN packages.

• texlive-plain-generic: This package contains add-on packages and macros that work with plain TeX, often LaTeX and occasionally other formats.

  It includes 91 CTAN packages:

  abbr, abstyles, apnum, autoaligne, barr, bitelist, borceux, c-pascal, catcodes, chronosys, colorsep, cweb-old, dinat, dirtree, docbytex, dowith, eijkhout, encxvlna, epigram, epsf, epsf-dvipdfmx, fenixpar, figflow, fixpdfmag, fltpoint, fntproof, font-change, fontch, fontname, gates, genmisc, getoptk, gfnotation, gobble, graphics-pln, gtl, hlist, hyplain, ifetex, iftex, insbox, js-misc, kastrup, lambda-lists, langcode, lecturer, librarian, listofitems, mathdots, metatex, midnight, mkpattern, modulus, multido, navigator, newsletr, ofs, olsak-misc, path, pdf-trans, pitex, placeins-plain, plainpkg, plipsum, plnfss, plstmary, poormanlog, present, randomlist, resumemac, schemata, shade, simplekv, systeme, tabto-generic, termmenu, tex-ps, tex4ht, texapi, texdate, timetable, tracklang, treetex, trigonometry, ulem, upca, varisize, xii, xii-lat, xlop, yax

• texlive-latex-extra: This package contains a very large collection of add-on packages.

  Installing this package also installs texlive-latex-base, texlive-latex-recommended, texlive-pictures, texlive-fonts-recommended and texlive-plain-generic. This package depends on texlive-latex-recommended (which in turn depends on texlive-latex-base) and texlive-pictures. Further, this package recommends texlive-plain-generic and texlive-fonts-recommended.

  It includes 1239 CTAN packages:

  2up, ESIEEcv, GS1, HA-prosper, Tabbing, a0poster, a4wide, a5comb, abraces, abstract, achemso, acro, acronym, acroterm, actuarialangle, actuarialsymbol, addfont, addlines, adjmulticol, adjustbox, adrconv, advdate, akktex, akletter, alertmessage, alnumsec, alterqcm, altfont, amsaddr, animate, anonchap, answers, anyfontsize, appendix, appendixnumberbeamer, apptools, arcs, arrayjobx, arraysort, arydshln, asciilist, assignment, assoccnt, attachfile, aurl, authoraftertitle, authorarchive, authorindex, autonum, autopdf, avremu, axessibility, background, bankstatement, bashful, basicarith, bchart, beamer2thesis, beameraudience, beamercolorthemeowl, beamerdarkthemes, beamerposter, beamersubframe, beamertheme-cuerna, beamertheme-detlevcm, beamertheme-epyt, beamertheme-focus, beamertheme-light, beamertheme-metropolis, beamertheme-npbt, beamertheme-phnompenh, beamertheme-saintpetersburg, beamertheme-upenn-bc, beamerthemejltree, beamerthemenirma, beton, bewerbung, bez123, bezos, bhcexam, bibletext, bigfoot, bigints, biochemistry-colors, bizcard, blindtext, blkarray, block, blowup, bnumexpr, boites, bold-extra, bookcover, bookest, booklet, boolexpr, bophook, boxedminipage, boxedminipage2e, boxhandler, bracketkey, braket, breakurl, bullcntr, bussproofs, bxcalc, bxdpx-beamer, bxdvidriver, bxenclose, bxnewfont, bxpapersize, bxpdfver, bxtexlogo, calcage, calctab, calculator, calrsfs, cals, calxxxx-yyyy, cancel, canoniclayout, capt-of, captcont, captdef, carbohydrates, cases, casyl, catchfilebetweentags, catechis, catoptions, cbcoptic, ccaption, cclicenses, cd, cd-cover, cdpbundl, cellprops, cellspace, censor, changebar, changelayout, changelog, changepage, changes, chappg, chapterfolder, cheatsheet, chet, chextras, childdoc, chkfloat, chletter, chngcntr, chronology, circ, classics, classpack, clefval, cleveref, clipboard, clock, cloze, clrdblpg, clrstrip, cmdstring, cmdtrack, cmsd, cnltx, cntformats, cntperchap, codedoc, codepage, codesection, collcell, collectbox, colophon, colordoc, colorinfo, coloring, colorspace, colortab, colorwav, colorweb, colourchange, combelow, combine, comma, commado, commedit, comment, competences, concepts, concprog, constants, continue, contour, contracard, conv-xkv, cooking, cooking-units, cool, coollist, coolstr, coolthms, cooltooltips, coordsys, copyedit, copyrightbox, coseoul, counttexruns, courseoutline, coursepaper, coverpage, cprotect, crbox, crossreference, crossreftools, csquotes, css-colors, csvsimple, cuisine, currency, currfile, currvita, cutwin, cv, cv4tw, cweb-latex, cyber, cybercic, dashbox, dashrule, dashundergaps, dataref, datatool, dateiliste, datenumber, datetime, datetime2, datetime2-bahasai, datetime2-basque, datetime2-breton, datetime2-bulgarian, datetime2-catalan, datetime2-croatian, datetime2-czech, datetime2-danish, datetime2-dutch, datetime2-en-fulltext, datetime2-english, datetime2-esperanto, datetime2-estonian, datetime2-finnish, datetime2-french, datetime2-galician, datetime2-german, datetime2-greek, datetime2-hebrew, datetime2-icelandic, datetime2-irish, datetime2-italian, datetime2-it-fulltext, datetime2-latin, datetime2-lsorbian, datetime2-magyar, datetime2-norsk, datetime2-polish, datetime2-portuges, datetime2-romanian, datetime2-russian, datetime2-samin, datetime2-scottish, datetime2-serbian, datetime2-slovak, datetime2-slovene, datetime2-spanish, datetime2-swedish, datetime2-turkish, datetime2-ukrainian, datetime2-usorbian, datetime2-welsh, dblfloatfix, decimal, decorule, delimtxt, denisbdoc, diagbox, diagnose, dialogl, dichokey, dinbrief, directory, dirtytalk, dlfltxb, dnaseq, doclicense, docmfp, docmute, doctools, documentation, doi, dotarrow, dotseqn, download, dox, dpfloat, dprogress, drac, draftcopy, draftfigure, draftwatermark, dtk, dtxdescribe, dtxgallery, duckuments, ducksay, dvdcoll, dynamicnumber, dynblocks, ean13isbn, easy, easy-todo, easyfig, easyformat, easylist, easyreview, ebezier, ecclesiastic, ecv, ed, edmargin, eemeir, efbox, egplot, elegantbook, elegantnote, elegantpaper, elements, ellipsis, elmath, elocalloc, elpres, elzcards, emarks, embedall, embrac, emptypage, emulateapj, endfloat, endheads, endnotes, engpron, engrec, enotez, enumitem, enumitem-zref, envbig, environ, envlab, epigraph, epiolmec, eqell, eqlist, eqnalign, eqname, eqparbox, errata, erw-l3, esami, esdiff, esint, esint-type1, etaremune, etextools, etoc, eukdate, eulerpx, europasscv, europecv, everyhook, everypage, exam, exam-n, exam-randomizechoices, examdesign, exframe, example, examplep, exceltex, excludeonly, exercise, exercisebank, exercisepoints, exercises, exp-testopt, expdlist, export, exsheets, exsol, extract, facsimile, factura, fancyhandout, fancylabel, fancynum, fancypar, fancyslides, fancytabs, fancytooltips, fcolumn, fetchcls, ffslides, fgruler, fibeamer, fifo-stack, figsize, filecontents, filecontentsdef, filedate, fileinfo, filemod, fink, finstrut, fithesis, fixcmex, fixfoot, fixme, fixmetodonotes, fjodor, flabels, flacards, flagderiv, flashcards, flashmovie, flipbook, flippdf, floatflt, floatrow, flowfram, fmp, fmtcount, fn2end, fnbreak, fncychap, fncylab, fnpara, fnpct, fnumprint, foilhtml, fontaxes, fonttable, footmisc, footmisx, footnotebackref, footnotehyper, footnoterange, footnpag, forarray, foreign, forloop, formlett, forms16be, formular, fragments, frame, framed, frankenstein, frege, ftcap, ftnxtra, fullblck, fullminipage, fullwidth, fundus-calligra, fundus-cyr, fundus-sueterlin, fvextra, fwlw, g-brief, gatherenum, gauss, gcard, gcite, gender, genmpage, getfiledate, getitems, ginpenc, gitfile-info, gitinfo, gitinfo2, gitlog, gitver, globalvals, gloss, glossaries, glossaries-danish, glossaries-dutch, glossaries-english, glossaries-estonian, glossaries-extra, glossaries-finnish, glossaries-french, glossaries-german, glossaries-irish, glossaries-italian, glossaries-magyar, glossaries-polish, glossaries-portuges, glossaries-serbian, glossaries-spanish, gmdoc, gmdoc-enhance, gmiflink, gmutils, gmverb, grabbox, graphbox, graphicx-psmin, graphicxbox, grayhints, grfpaste, grid, grid-system, gridset, gridslides, guitlogo, halloweenmath, hackthefootline, handin, handout, hang, hanging, hardwrap, harnon-cv, harpoon, hc, he-she, hhtensor, histogr, hitec, hletter, hpsdiss, hrefhide, hvindex, hypdvips, hyper, hyperbar, hypernat, hyperxmp, hyphenat, identkey, idxcmds, idxlayout, iffont, ifmslide, ifmtarg, ifnextok, ifoddpage, ifplatform, ifthenx, iitem, image-gallery, imakeidx, import, incgraph, indextools, inline-images, inlinedef, inputtrc, interactiveworkbook, interfaces, intopdf, inversepath, invoice, invoice-class, invoice2, iso, iso10303, isodate, isodoc, isonums, isopt, isorot, isotope, issuulinks, iwhdp, jlabels, jslectureplanner, jumplines, jvlisting, kalendarium, kantlipsum, kerntest, keycommand, keyfloat, keyreader, keystroke, keyval2e, keyvaltable, kix, knowledge, koma-moderncvclassic, koma-script-sfs, komacv, komacv-rg, ktv-texdata, l3build, labbook, labels, labelschanged, lastpackage, lastpage, latex-tds, latex-uni8, latexcolors, latexdemo, latexgit, layouts, lazylist, lccaps, lcd, lcg, leading, leaflet, lectures, leftidx, leipzig, lengthconvert, lettre, lettrine, lewis, lhelp, libgreek, limap, linegoal, linop, lipsum, lisp-on-tex, listing, listlbls, listliketab, listofsymbols, lkproof, lmake, locality, localloc, logbox, logical-markup-utils, logpap, longfbox, longfigure, longnamefilelist, loops, lsc, lstaddons, lstfiracode, lt3graph, ltablex, ltabptch, ltxdockit, ltxguidex, ltxindex, ltxkeys, ltxnew, ltxtools, lua-check-hyphen, luatodonotes, macroswap, magaz, makecookbook, mailing, mailmerge, makebarcode, makebase, makebox, makecell, makecirc, makecmds, makedtx, makeglos, mandi, manfnt, manuscript, manyind, marginfit, marginfix, marginnote, markdown, mathalfa, mathastext, mathexam, mathfam256, mathfont, maybemath, mbenotes, mcaption, mceinleger, mcexam, mcite, mciteplus, mdframed, media9, medstarbeamer, meetingmins, memexsupp, memory, mensa-tex, menu, menukeys, metalogox, method, metre, mfirstuc, mftinc, mi-solns, midpage, minibox, minidocument, minifp, minipage-marginpar, minitoc, minorrevision, minted, minutes, mla-paper, mlist, mmap, mnotes, moderncv, modernposter, moderntimeline, modref, modroman, modular, monofill, moodle, moreenum, morefloats, morehype, moresize, moreverb, morewrites, movie15, mparhack, mpostinl, msc, msg, mslapa, mtgreek, multenum, multiaudience, multibbl, multicap, multicolrule, multidef, multienv, multiexpand, multilang, multirow, mversion, mwe, mycv, mylatexformat, nag, nameauth, namespc, ncclatex, ncctools, needspace, nestquot, newcommand, newenviron, newfile, newlfm, newspaper, newunicodechar, newvbtm, newverbs, nextpage, nfssext-cfr, nicefilelist, niceframe, nicetext, nidanfloat, nlctdoc, noconflict, noindentafter, noitcrul, nolbreaks, nomencl, nomentbl, nonfloat, nonumonpart, nopageno, normalcolor, notes, notespages, notestex, notoccite, nowidow, nox, ntheorem, numberedblock, numname, numprint, numspell, ocg-p, ocgx, ocgx2, ocr-latex, octavo, oldstyle, onlyamsmath, opcit, optidef, optional, options, outline, outliner, outlines, outlining, overlays, overpic, padcount, pagecolor, pagecont, pagenote, pagerange, pageslts, paper, papercdcase, papermas, papertex, paracol, parades, paralist, paresse, parnotes, parselines, pas-cours, pas-cv, pas-tableur, patch, patchcmd, pauldoc, pawpict, pax, pbox, pbsheet, pdf14, pdfcomment, pdfcprot, pdfmarginpar, pdfoverlay, pdfpagediff, pdfpc-movie, pdfprivacy, pdfreview, pdfscreen, pdfslide, pdfsync, pdfwin, pdfx, pecha, perltex, permute, petiteannonce, phffullpagefigure, phfnote, phfparen, phfqit, phfquotetext, phfsvnwatermark, phfthm, philex, phonenumbers, photo, piff, pkgloader, placeins, plantslabels, plates, plweb, polynom, polynomial, polytable, postcards, poster-mac, ppr-prv, preprint, pressrelease, prettyref, printlen, probsoln, program, progress, progressbar, proofread, properties, prosper, protex, protocol, psfragx, pstool, pstring, pxgreeks, pygmentex, python, qcm, qstest, qsymbols, quicktype, quotchap, quoting, quotmark, ran_toks, randtext, rccol, rcs-multi, rcsinfo, readarray, realboxes, recipe, recipebook, recipecard, rectopma, refcheck, refenums, reflectgraphics, refman, refstyle, regcount, regexpatch, register, regstats, relenc, relsize, repeatindex, repltext, returntogrid, rgltxdoc, rjlparshap, rlepsf, rmpage, robustcommand, robustindex, romanbar, romanbarpagenumber, romanneg, romannum, rotfloat, rotpages, roundbox, rterface, rtkinenc, rulercompass, rvwrite, sanitize-umlaut, sauerj, savefnmark, savesym, savetrees, scale, scalebar, scalerel, scanpages, scrlttr2copy, sdrt, secdot, sectionbox, sectionbreak, sectsty, seealso, selectp, semantic, semantic-markup, semioneside, semproc, sepfootnotes, seqsplit, sesstime, sf298, sffms, sfmath, shadethm, shadow, shadowtext, shapepar, shdoc, shipunov, shorttoc, show2e, showcharinbox, showdim, showexpl, showhyphens, showlabels, sidecap, sidenotes, silence, simplecd, simplecv, simpleinvoice, sitem, skb, skdoc, skeycommand, skeyval, skrapport, slantsc, smalltableof, smartunits, smartref, snapshot, snotez, soul, spark-otf, sparklines, sphack, splitindex, spot, spotcolor, spreadtab, spverbatim, srbook-mem, srcltx, sseq, sslides, stack, stackengine, standalone, stdclsdv, stealcaps, stdpage, stex, storebox, storecmd, stringstrings, sttools, stubs, studenthandouts, subdepth, subeqn, subeqnarray, subfigmat, subfigure, subfiles, subfloat, substitutefont, substr, supertabular, svg, svgcolor, svn, svn-multi, svn-prov, svninfo, syntax, syntrace, synttree, tabfigures, tableaux, tablefootnote, tableof, tablestyles, tablists, tabls, tablvar, tabstackengine, tabto-ltx, tabu, tabularborder, tabularcalc, tabularew, tabulary, tagging, tagpair, tagpdf, talk, tamefloats, tasks, tcldoc, tcolorbox, tdclock, technics, ted, templatetools, termcal, termlist, testhyphens, testidx, tex-label, tex-locale, texlogos, texmate, texments, texpower, texshade, texvc, textfit, textmerg, textpos, textualicomma, theoremref, thinsp, thmtools, threadcol, threeparttable, threeparttablex, thumb, thumbs, thumby, ticket, titlecaps, titlefoot, titlepic, titleref, titlesec, titling, tocbibind, tocdata, tocloft, tocvsec2, todo, todonotes, tokenizer, toolbox, topfloat, topiclongtable, totcount, totpages, translations, trfsigns, trimspaces, trivfloat, trsym, truncate, tucv, turnthepage, twoinone, twoup, txgreeks, type1cm, typed-checklist, typeface, typoaid, typogrid, uassign, ucs, uebungsblatt, umoline, underlin, underoverlap, undolabl, units, unravel, upmethodology, upquote, uri, ushort, uspace, uwmslide, variablelm, varindex, varsfromjobname, varwidth, vdmlisting, verbasef, verbatimbox, verbatimcopy, verbdef, verbments, version, versions, versonotes, vertbars, vgrid, vhistory, vmargin, volumes, vpe, vruler, vwcol, wallcalendar, wallpaper, warning, warpcol, was, widetable, widows-and-orphans, williams, withargs, wordcount, wordlike, worksheet, wrapfig, wtref, xargs, xassoccnt, xbmks, xcntperchap, xcolor-material, xcolor-solarized, xcomment, xcookybooky, xdoc, xellipsis, xfakebold, xfor, xhfill, xifthen, xint, xltabular, xmpincl, xnewcommand, xoptarg, xpatch, xpeek, xprintlen, xpunctuate, xsavebox, xsim, xstring, xtab, xurl, xwatermark, xytree, yafoot, yaletter, yagusylo, ycbook, ydoc, yplan, zebra-goodies, zed-csp, ziffer, zwgetfdate, zwpagelayout

• texlive-full: This metapackage pulls all components of TeX Live. Installing this metapackage installs all the packages discussed above and much more. This metapackage depends on all Tex Live packages including all the above packages.

Dependency Graph

Here's a dependency graph which shows how the various Debian packages for TeX Live depend on each other.

                          texlive-latex-extra
                             |   |   :   :
           +-----------------+   |   :   :..................
           |                     |   :                     :
           v                     |   :                     v
    texlive-pictures             |   :           texlive-plain-generic
           |                     |   :
           |    +----------------+   :...............
           |    |                                   :
           |    |              texlive              :
           |    |               | | |               :
           |    |    +----------+ | +----------+    :
           |    |    |            |            |    :
           v    v    v            |            v    v
    texlive-latex-recommended     |  texlive-fonts-recommended
                     |            |            :
                     |            |            v
                     |            |           tipa
                     |            |            |
                     +----------+ | +----------+
                                | | |
                                v v v
                         texlive-latex-base

Here's the legend for the above graph:

          A                       A
          |                       :
          v                       v
          B                       B

    A depends on B          A recommends B

The texlive-full package depends on all of the packages shown above (except texlive of course because that's a metapackage).

Installation Choices

Considering everything I have mentioned above, I see the following good choices for installing TeX Live on Debian or Ubuntu.

• apt-get install texlive-base: This is a tiny installation. It downloads only 59 MB of archives and occupies only 216 MB of disk space. It is sufficient for only very basic and straightforward typesetting. Someone who has just started learning LaTeX may be able to perform their learning activities with this minimal installation. But it may not suffice for someone who creates presentations (beamer is missing), includes syntax-highlighted code blocks (listings and xcolor are missing), adds vertical space between paragraphs (parskip is missing) or customises captions (caption is missing).

• apt-get install texlive: This is a small installation. It downloads only 98 MB of archives and occupies 314 MB of disk space. It includes most of the useful stuff like beamer, listings, xcolor, parskip, caption, etc. I think one can go a long way with this installation. However, it may not be sufficient if you want to draw diagrams with TikZ (pgf is missing) or if you want to customise the section headings (titlesec is missing) or if you want to place boxes at absolute positions (textpos is missing).

• apt-get install texlive-latex-extra: This is a medium installation. It downloads 144 MB of archives and occupies 452 MB of disk space. It includes a lot of packages. Almost all frequently used stuff are present. For example, pgf, titlesec and textpos are present. This is what I usually install. Even with the large number of packages, it has a few useful things missing that I occassionally rely on. For example, I cannot include pretty icons with it (fontawesome is missing). For such things, I install them separately with tlmgr.

• apt-get install texlive-full: This is a huge installation. It downloads 2.7 GB of archives and occupies 5.2 GB of disk space on installation. Once installed, we are all set for all kinds of typesetting work. We almost never have to worry about missing packages again.