When to know when your Linux install is bloated?

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

Recently I wondered whether I could figure out whether my system was as light weight as possible, part of my rabbit hole of learning around Linux distributions and packages management.

 

It got me thinking aside from removing unused applications and autoremoving unused packages, are there more sophisticated ways to see whether your system is bloated.   Eg. See when a package was last accessed? 

 

Neofetch shows Packages: 2827 (dpkg), 6 (snap) on my Debian SID install, which is setup for lutris gaming, coding, streaming, and general use.  This seems low to me but I dont have a reference.

[Ashleyyyy]

it depends what you have installed. i have a bunch of stuff installed but it's nowhere near the level i would be at if i did IOMMU for example

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

11 minutes ago, Twilight said:

it depends what you have installed. i have a bunch of stuff installed but it's nowhere near the level i would be at if i did IOMMU for example

I never paid attention to my VirtualBox package requirements.  Interesting that you mention it.

 

Guess I am asking how long is a piece of string.  I mean the system is stable and rock solid, my curiosity peaked.

[Sauron]

Define "bloated". Is it slow? Does it use so many resources on idle that it hurts your work?

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

Define "bloated". Is it slow? Does it use so many resources on idle that it hurts your work?

Has unnecessary packages.

 

My system is as fast as mutter and gnome shell can get.

[Nayr438]

Most distributions will have quite a few packages that are unnecessary to you, but are present for compatibility and user friendliness.

The only issue with removing them, is that a lot of them are usually tied as dependencies to other packages whether they are needed or not. This is pretty common in Distros such as Ubuntu.

if you want a system that only comes with what you want, you need to start with a minimal base, such as Arch Linux. You would only have what you installed and any dependencies that are deemed necessary for those packages, with other optional dependencies left up to you.

 

Neofetch for My Arch Install, with KDE. I also have various packages from jetbrains, use obs studio, lutris, steam, etc... with some packages i don't really use, that could be removed Shows, Packages: 1234 (pacman). Though you cant really compare package counts, as each user has their own preferences.

 

This may also be nice to look into if you consider Arch.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman/Tips_and_tricks

 

I don't personally know enough about other distros to offer any advice for them however.

 

[benitiv]

5 hours ago, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

Eg. See when a package was last accessed? 

I am not aware of something specific like that, however, you could try and play around with "ls -lt" and check your whole filesystem for last access times. But I do not really know if this even will fit your needs.

 

Even though nowadays there is not much to worry about since hardware progressed to quick and far, I still share your curiosity and the unpleasant feeling of something being there just lurking around.

I spend most time of my life with veeeery outdated and refurbished hardware so I always had to try to keep the OS clean to get some decent performance.

 

Here is what I did / do:

a) as long as you take the vanilla version (or minimal install or server install, whatever they may call it)  independent on the distro you'll get a bloat free expierence

(You can have an Ubuntu(server) distro with cinnamon desktop environment running snappier and skinnier(?) with less packages installed at the same productivity level than let's say a archlinux based manjaro.)

But it seems like you already installed your Debian from the scratch?

 

b) watch closer when installing packages

sometimes there comes a whole desktop environment with just installing a simple file manager - think twice before hitting "Y" - usually there is always less bloated alternative

 

c) kick out some modules

might be unnecessary nowadays where you have multiple gigabye of RAM, but you can clean your system by removing some modules ("lsmod" "rmmod" and blacklisting). - most people don't need bluetooth service on a desktop for example

〜 this step might require some research and should be handled with care, but hey you'll learn a lot living on the edge

 

For your reference debian buddy:

On my Debian10 (buster - vanilla) machine I have everything set up from office applications, photo and video editing, steam etc. running plasma and I am a 1769 package rate (all dpkg)

using around 1GB of ram writing this and having a couple of more tabs open.

Since there is almost a 1000 package difference between us I recon you had to add a lot of packages for your coding purposes, as well as wine.. ?

[Sauron]

10 hours ago, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

Has unnecessary packages.

A lot of packages are "unnecessary" in that you can probably do the same thing without them. You don't need a desktop environment, you don't need a network manager, you don't need a GUI based IDE etc. Sometimes the question isn't "what is the bare minimum to do what you need" but rather "what makes your experience more enjoyable".

10 hours ago, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

My system is as fast as mutter and gnome shell can get.

If that's fast enough for you then maybe you're worrying about nothing. If not, start by getting rid of Gnome and installing something lighter like XFCE or a barebones window manager.

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

6 hours ago, benitiv said:

For your reference debian buddy:

On my Debian10 (buster - vanilla) machine I have everything set up from office applications, photo and video editing, steam etc. running plasma and I am a 1769 package rate (all dpkg)

using around 1GB of ram writing this and having a couple of more tabs open.

Since there is almost a 1000 package difference between us I recon you had to add a lot of packages for your coding purposes, as well as wine.. ?

Thank you for the reference.  My system is currently setup for full stack development using (NPM, FFPMEG, MONGO) etc which is a couple  hundred packages.  NVIDIA, Wine, DXVK etc is another couple hundred. 

 

33 minutes ago, Sauron said:

A lot of packages are "unnecessary" in that you can probably do the same thing without them. You don't need a desktop environment, you don't need a network manager, you don't need a GUI based IDE etc. Sometimes the question isn't "what is the bare minimum to do what you need" but rather "what makes your experience more enjoyable".

If that's fast enough for you then maybe you're worrying about nothing. If not, start by getting rid of Gnome and installing something lighter like XFCE or a barebones window manager.

You are absolutely right, why change an enjoyable experience, nearly everything is setup how I like.  My mentality to technology is KISS and keep it minimal.   I will check out UnixPorn and see if there is anything that may suit my workflow better.