You may install/uninstall using synaptic, aptitude, or apt-get - it doesn't matter, as long as you're doing it from inside ED. As for which packages, I have no idea, as what is "essential" wary from person to person.

As for extracting image after shrinking it - you may do it all from N900. You need to mount it first, then, you may copy it's content (which imply mounting your to-be debian partition, too. Be sure to close ED chroot, first! Then for example, do:

Now, you should be able to use ED as normal, thanks to .chroot config file pichlo helped you to prepare. What you got, is essentially partition-based ED. Performance may be hurt a little due to having swap on same physical device as ED, but otherwise, it should work fine.

Remember, than any names I used are just mockup - for /tmp/ directory, you may create it with whichever name you want. /dev/mmcblk1p1 assumes, that it is your ext3 partition on SD card - if not, change it accordingly.

OTOH, if you're gonna tell me that you don't have "your-easy-debian-image-file.ext3" on MyDocs, or that "#after copying ends" command return errors, a bunny will die (excuse poor pun, don't take it to the heart).

/Estel