diff --git a/.github/workflows/qemu-image-build.yml b/.github/workflows/qemu-image-build.yml
index 7253af151..687d60a4f 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/qemu-image-build.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/qemu-image-build.yml
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ on:
     branches:
       - develop
       - release/*
+      - da/strip-deps
     paths:
       - '.github/workflows/qemu-image-build.yml'
       - 'qemu-arm64-nix.pkr.hcl'
diff --git a/ansible/vars.yml b/ansible/vars.yml
index 0e658202d..c042b7955 100644
--- a/ansible/vars.yml
+++ b/ansible/vars.yml
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ postgres_major:
 
 # Full version strings for each major version
 postgres_release:
-  postgresorioledb-17: "17.0.1.078-orioledb"
+  postgresorioledb-17: "17.0.1.079-orioledb-rc1"
   postgres17: "17.4.1.028"
   postgres15: "15.8.1.085"
 
diff --git a/scripts/90-cleanup-qemu.sh b/scripts/90-cleanup-qemu.sh
index d6c6ade05..d85d6d090 100644
--- a/scripts/90-cleanup-qemu.sh
+++ b/scripts/90-cleanup-qemu.sh
@@ -43,7 +43,9 @@ elif [ -n "$(command -v apt-get)" ]; then
   add-apt-repository --yes --remove ppa:ansible/ansible
 
   source /etc/os-release
-  apt-get -y remove --purge linux-headers-5.11.0-1021-aws
+
+  apt-get -y remove --purge ansible-core apport appstream bash-completion bcache-tools bind9-dnsutils bind9-host bind9-libs bolt btrfs-progs byobu command-not-found console-setup distro-info eject fonts-ubuntu-console friendly-recovery ftp fwupd gawk gdisk keyboard-configuration libvolume-key1 libicu66 libssl-dev lvm2 lxd-agent-loader man-db mdadm modemmanager mtd-utils nano netcat-openbsd nfs-common ntfs-3g parted pastebinit python3-setuptools python3-twisted screen strace thin-provisioning-tools tmux usb-modeswitch vim vim-runtime wget whiptail xfsprogs
+  apt remove --purge libc6-dev linux-libc-dev libevent-dev libpcre3-dev libsystemd-dev
 
   apt-get -y update
   apt-get -y upgrade