There is. Have a look at the installer. It is a minimal installation.
I installed Opensuse many times yesterday, but it always pulls in unwanted apps. I deselected games, but they still installed. @OrsoBruno has explained that they come with Gnome, and there is no way to avoid it. The minimal install possible is not very minimal.
Thanks for the heads up. I will remember about the lock. I’m new to Opensuse , so every nugget of help is appreciated.
The minimal install does not install a DE. So if you talk about Gnome…you didn’t choose the minimal installation option.
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Out of curiosity I did a test Tumbleweed install (for the records using the openSUSE-Tumbleweed-NET-x86_64-Snapshot20260106-Media.iso but it got updated to the current snapshot during the install phase).
Using the “Gnome desktop” role but deselected almost everything Gnome, keeping only patterns-gnome-gnome_basic and patterns-gnome-gnome_basis.
At reboot there was a quite minimal but functional Gnome, with File manager, Terminal emulator, Text editor, Mail client, Firefox, basic Video-Music player (Totem) and basic system management tools, no games, no LibreOffice, no Graphics software so basically everything as intended.
I don’t know what the OP actually did, but the installer works as designed.
The “problem” is the chain of dependencies:
patterns-gnome-gnome requires
patterns-gnome-gnome_basic which requires patterns-gnome-gnome_basis
and recommends among other things patterns-gnome-gnome_games and *_imaging and *_internet and *_utilities and so at the first zypper dupwhich provides an upgrade to patterns-gnome-gnome the whole chain gets upgrades, games sneak in etc.
unless patterns-gnome-gnome and patterns-gnome-gnome_basic are uninstalled right after the first reboot.
After that you can uninstall whatever patterns-gnome-xxx you want without further needs for locks (but please remember the --clean-deps option).
Please be aware that uninstalling patterns-gnome-gnome you may not get the correct upgrades when Gnome gets a major version upgrade, say from 48 to 49 which ditched gedit for gnome-text-editor for instance.
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@hui Just to note, I am talking about a Minimal App Install, not Minimal install. I want all the Gnome services, etc., just not the apps.
@OrsoBruno It is clear that I must just install and then remove the apps I do not require (as you explained). It’s not optimal, but it is what is. I use that Betterbird so Evolution will be the first to go.
It’s funny, I actually started playing a few of the games. 
Just in case you need to install another system with a “minimal Gnome” the minimum still functional Gnome can be installed by selecting the “Generic Desktop” role and adding the patterns-gnome-gnome_basis package.
Be careful, not the patterns-gnome-gnome_basic.
That will leave you with Firefox, Terminal, Myrlyn (Software management), File manager and basic system preferences tools.
Then you may add whatever you want after the first reboot.
No risk of games sneaking in etc.
Thanks for that. I may do a reinstall.
If Gnome Wayland is not installed, will any gnome services not be installed?
@sfalken After long consideration and reading more about FUSE, I understand why it is not accepted into the distro. I’ve emailed the two apps to request Flatpak versions, otherwise I will have to learn to package them myself (if that is actually possible).
Aeon, for me, is the perfect distro, and IMHO the future of Linux. Back in the day, I ran built nternet cafes using portableapps and deepfreeze.