I retraced my steps, this time removing only three packages that should not affect any system files. They were LibreOffice, Gimp, and Brasero. Then I ran "apt-get autoremove" and checked for system files. This produced an ISO under 700MB. It booted to level 5 (as user root) again but did not start the GUI. I have a funny feeling this is an .Xauthority problem, as I have run up against that in other distributions. Since "startx" works from the command line, is there a simple way to run "startx" from a startup script somewhere?

Thanks.

P.S. I don't have enough RAM to use virtualization.