debian-setup

GNOME Core Reduced

There is the gnome-core metapackage that can be installed.

sudo apt-get --no-install-recommends install gnome-core

If gnome-core does not look lean enough, the following packages are hand-picked from the gnome-core list:

sudo apt-get --no-install-recommends install \
        xserver-xorg \
        gdm3 \
        gnome-session \
        gnome-shell \
        gnome-keyring libpam-gnome-keyring \
        gnome-control-center \
        gnome-terminal \
        network-manager-gnome \
        pulseaudio

Next step: Browsers