I have a headless raspberry pi 5 that only needs an ethernet connection with a static IP address. I don't need wifi, dhcp, NetworkManager, systemd-networkd, systemd-resolvd, netplan, etc.
It's amazing that you can't use the Raspberry Pi Imager to just create a debian lite install without all of that crap.
The following provides a simpler, saner, and leaner default IMO.
- Install the
ifupdownpackage: