Why does KDE load so much bloat?

[linkboy]

If you're looking for a distro that's easy for someone who's used to Windows, why not give Zorin or Linux Mint with Cinnamon a try (or just install Cinnamon if you want to stick with Arch)?

 

Cinnamon is one of my favorite DE's because of it's similarity to a Windows layout, but it doesn't overwhelm the user with customization options if that person isn't into that (like Plasma can).

 

[aliagent]

I just want to second the "archdi" recommendation. It's a companion to the "archfi" install script for Arch, but for post-install (DE, networking, printing, sound, so on). You can pick and choose exactly which KDE apps to install, including none (not even dolphin, apparently), if you so wish

[finest feck fips]

On 5/28/2021 at 10:58 AM, WolframaticAlpha said:

I started installing Plasma and the kde-apps

On 5/28/2021 at 10:58 AM, WolframaticAlpha said:

Why is KDE so $%@# bloated?

KDE is a framework for writing applications, and a collection of applications written use said framework. Anyone can make a KDE app for anything, and if it's okay and it works, it can become a KDE app.
 

On 5/28/2021 at 10:58 AM, WolframaticAlpha said:

Long story short, KDE installed a ton of unneeded stuff.

KDE didn't install anything. You installed a bunch of unnecessary stuff because you didn't read your own distro's documentation on how they choose to package KDE applications.

 

On 5/30/2021 at 12:38 PM, WolframaticAlpha said:

I found a script called the archdi script. Worked flawlessly. No bloat now.

If you're 1337 enough to be installing custom kernels, obsessed with ‘bloat’, and so on, why don't you know how to use your package manager?

Everything you need to know to solve this yourself can be found in the two paragraphs I linked to earlier and the man page for pacman. I didn't know how to do it before I wrote this post, and it took me about 15 minutes to figure out. (I do not use Arch, btw; I installed Arch in a VM to test this.)

If you used the kde-applications package group, search for groups in the pacman manpage. Screw around for about 2-3 minutes and you can figure out that you can remove everything except some whitelisted packages and what they need like this:

pacman -Qg plasma kde-applications | cut -d' ' -f2 | grep -vE 'plasma-desktop|dolphin|kate|konsole' | sudo pacman -Ru -

If you used package groups, you want something more minimal than what you get out of that, and you're willing to uninstall and reinstall some stuff, then use

sudo pacman -R plasma kde-applications

 

and then

sudo pacman -S plasma-desktop dolphin kate konsole

or whatever to reinstall just the things you want.
 

If you instead used metapackages rather than package groups, then you need to mark the packages you want to keep as explicitly installed:

sudo pacman -S --asexplicit plasma-desktop dolphin kate konsole

 

And then you can just recursively remove the metapackages to get rid of their unwanted deps:

sudo pacman -Rs plasma-meta kde-applications-meta

Maybe you should learn the basics of administering your own operating system before you go making pronouncements on what is ‘bloated and inefficient’. Unfortunately for you there's no ‘github script’ you can blindly run to install an informed opinion.

 

[Alexeygridnev1993]

22 minutes ago, finest feck fips said:

KDE is a framework for writing applications, and a collection of applications written use said framework. Anyone can make a KDE app for anything, and if it's okay and it works, it can become a KDE app.
 

KDE didn't install anything. You installed a bunch of unnecessary stuff because you didn't read your own distro's documentation on how they choose to package KDE applications.

 

If you're 1337 enough to be installing custom kernels, obsessed with ‘bloat’, and so on, why don't you know how to use your package manager?

Everything you need to know to solve this yourself can be found in the two paragraphs I linked to earlier and the man page for pacman. I didn't know how to do it before I wrote this post, and it took me about 15 minutes to figure out. (I do not use Arch, btw; I installed Arch in a VM to test this.)

If you used the kde-applications package group, search for groups in the pacman manpage. Screw around for about 2-3 minutes and you can figure out that you can remove everything except some whitelisted packages and what they need like this:

pacman -Qg plasma kde-applications | cut -d' ' -f2 | grep -vE 'plasma-desktop|dolphin|kate|konsole' | sudo pacman -Ru -

If you used package groups, you want something more minimal than what you get out of that, and you're willing to uninstall and reinstall some stuff, then use

sudo pacman -R plasma kde-applications

 

and then

sudo pacman -S plasma-desktop dolphin kate konsole

or whatever to reinstall just the things you want.
 

If you instead used metapackages rather than package groups, then you need to mark the packages you want to keep as explicitly installed:

sudo pacman -S --asexplicit plasma-desktop dolphin kate konsole

 

And then you can just recursively remove the metapackages to get rid of their unwanted deps:

sudo pacman -Rs plasma-meta kde-applications-meta

Maybe you should learn the basics of administering your own operating system before you go making pronouncements on what is ‘bloated and inefficient’. Unfortunately for you there's no ‘github script’ you can blindly run to install an informed opinion.

 

People like YOU are exactly the reason why desktop Linux adoption never exceeds a couple of percentage points. No one needs your lectures about "how to administer your own operating system" and your RTFM advice all over the place.

[finest feck fips]

1 hour ago, Alexeygridnev1993 said:

People like YOU are exactly the reason why desktop Linux adoption never exceeds a couple of percentage points. No one needs your lectures about "how to administer your own operating system" and your RTFM advice all over the place.

Newbies who seek help in a respectful manner should be (and are) treated with kindness and respect, including by me.

But when people who don't even know their basic tools strut in like they're haxx0rz because they managed to copy and paste the install instructions for an ‘elite’ distro, coming in hot, talking shit about the quality of the work of others, spewing /g/ memes about ‘bloat’, pointlessly namedropping internet culture wars like ‘Qt vs Gtk’ for perceived clout? They're spewing brain poison, actively dragging down the quality of discussion and thought all around them. Shutting down fraudulent, elitist, zombie-like ricer culture is a public service.

It's also pretty hilarious to accuse me of an RTFM answer when in fact I'm the only person who answered the OP's question directly, so that this thread won't be a dead end for someone who stumbles upon it via web search some day. Describing exactly in detail how to solve a problem is the literal opposite of an RTFM answer.

It is true, though: OP should RTFM.

[D-reaper]

25 minutes ago, finest feck fips said:

Newbies who seek help in a respectful manner should be (and are) treated with kindness and respect, including by me.

But when people who don't even know their basic tools strut in like they're haxx0rz because they managed to copy and paste the install instructions for an ‘elite’ distro come in hot talking shit about the quality of the work of others, spewing /g/ memes about ‘bloat’, pointlessly namedropping internet culture wars like ‘Qt vs Gtk’ for perceived clout? They're spewing brain poison, actively dragging down the quality of discussion and thought all around them. Shutting down fraudulent, elitist, zombie-like ricer culture is a public service.

It's also pretty hilarious to accuse me of an RTFM answer when in fact I'm the only person who answered the OP's question directly, so that this thread won't be a dead end for someone who stumbles upon it via web search some day. Describing exactly in detail how to solve a problem is the literal opposite of an RTFM answer.

It is true, though: OP should RTFM.

Funny how people come in and expect royal treatment. Eh? I personally, would have just said install KDE Neon. That, or Garuda KDE Barebones.

[finest feck fips]

This thread has never been civil. You think the text of the OP would be tolerated on any moderated Linux support forum? You think that writing like

On 5/29/2021 at 4:55 PM, Alexeygridnev1993 said:

I completely agree, KDE should stop wasting time developing subpar apps which no one likes

meets any normal standards of decorum or civility?

These forums are essentially unmoderated and populated predominantly by gamers, and it shows. The closest analogue to the way the majority of posters here talk about software is the way that normies talk about sports teams: 90% hot air. And in that talk, it is utterly routine to see tons of language that is not only insulting, uncivil, dismissive, or exaggerated, but rife with nonsense and misinformation.

You wanna talk about a toxic culture? A culture in which there is no shame or hesitation in pretending to be a connoisseur of what you do not know, in glibly passing public judgment in ignorance... that's a toxic culture.

[finest feck fips]

8 minutes ago, D-reaper said:

I personally, would have just said install KDE Neon. That, or Garuda KDE Barebones.

I guess I had too much coffee today

[Alexeygridnev1993]

33 minutes ago, finest feck fips said:

It's also pretty hilarious to accuse me of an RTFM answer when in fact I'm the only person who answered the OP's question directly,

That is nice of you. But it would have been much nicer if you didn't reply at all, rather than sandwitched the actual advice in-between layers of humiliating lectures and shaming.

[Alexeygridnev1993]

2 minutes ago, finest feck fips said:

You think that writing like

On 5/30/2021 at 1:55 AM, Alexeygridnev1993 said:

I completely agree, KDE should stop wasting time developing subpar apps which no one likes

meets any normal standards of decorum or civility?

I stand behind what I said. Why wasting limited resources on developing apps like Konqueror or Konversation or KDE Store if no one uses them and there are much better alternatives which are just as open source as those apps? This time would have been much better spent on improving apps which people actually care about (like Dolphin).

 

If I happen to encounter a KDE developer in real life, I will say exactly the same.

[D-reaper]

6 minutes ago, finest feck fips said:

I guess I had too much coffee today

Yup. For guys like these, give them the simplest option where it's all done for them. Basically nothing they have to build entirely from the ground up. As a someone who uses KDE Neon, I think it's the best one. That, and Ubuntu based distros are easier for newbies.

[D-reaper]

3 minutes ago, Alexeygridnev1993 said:

I stand behind what I said. Why wasting limited resources on developing apps like Konqueror or Konversation or KDE Store if no one uses them and there are much better alternatives which are just as open source as those apps? This time would have been much better spent on improving apps which people actually care about (like Dolphin).

 

If I happen to encounter a KDE developer in real life, I will say exactly the same.

Then just install KDE Neon or Garuda Linux KDE Barebones and get it over with. Oh my goodness...

[Alexeygridnev1993]

46 minutes ago, finest feck fips said:

It is true, though: OP should RTFM.

Let me open you a secret: no one RTFM anymore. And not because people became lazy, but because if you try to actually RTFM for all the relevant pieces of software, you'll spend all your time on reading and not on actually using your computer. That is why the websites like Stackoverflow became so popular: you can spend 5 minutes to get the exact answer to the exact question you have rather than waste precious hours of your time on RTFM, 99% of which has absolutely nothing to do with the problem you have.

[D-reaper]

2 minutes ago, Alexeygridnev1993 said:

Let me open you a secret: no one RTFM anymore. And not because people became lazy, but because if you try to actually RTFM for all the relevant pieces of software, you'll spend all your time on reading and not on actually using your computer. That is why the websites like Stackoverflow became so popular: you can spend 5 minutes to get the exact answer to the exact question you have rather than waste precious hours of your time on RTFM, 99% of which has absolutely nothing to do with the problem you have.

Holy shit... I just said to install KDE Neon or Garuda Linux KDE Barebones and get it over with if you're looking for something that's KDE and light. Do you have a life?

[Alexeygridnev1993]

3 minutes ago, D-reaper said:

Then just install KDE Neon or Garuda Linux KDE Barebones and get it over with. Oh my goodness...

Don't worry, I know how to fix it. Just deleting all the apps you don't need in one line is not exactly hard. I'm just regretting about misallocation of resources.

[D-reaper]

Just now, Alexeygridnev1993 said:

Don't worry, I know how to fix it. Just deleting all the apps you don't need in one line is not exactly hard. I'm just regretting about misallocation of resources.

Then shit. Move on already if you know what to do. My god.

[Alexeygridnev1993]

1 minute ago, D-reaper said:

3 minutes ago, Alexeygridnev1993 said:

 

Then shit. Move on already if you know what to do. My god.

KDE doesn't annoy me at all. Read the entire conversation: I was replying to a user who considered my comment about KDE "uncivil".

[D-reaper]

45 minutes ago, Alexeygridnev1993 said:

KDE doesn't annoy me at all. Read the entire conversation: I was replying to a user who considered my comment about KDE "uncivil".

I'll pass on reading about the two of you arguing. Thank you. You both had a different opinion. Time to move on.

[WolframaticAlpha]

4 hours ago, finest feck fips said:

KDE is a framework for writing applications, and a collection of applications written use said framework. Anyone can make a KDE app for anything, and if it's okay and it works, it can become a KDE app.

No, that is Qt. KDE apps are developed by the KDE foundation.

4 hours ago, finest feck fips said:

KDE didn't install anything. You installed a bunch of unnecessary stuff because you didn't read your own distro's documentation on how they choose to package KDE applications.

I installed the kde bundle, because any sane person would need konsole, dolphin, ksysmon etc on a gui system. There was no way to install something like KDE minimal when I was using the system.

4 hours ago, finest feck fips said:

If you used the kde-applications package group, search for groups in the pacman manpage. Screw around for about 2-3 minutes and you can figure out that you can remove everything except some whitelisted packages and what they need like this:

So you want me to run 4 piped apps to run a simple KDE install? Gnome does it many times better. Heck, xfce, cinnamon, lxqt etc everyone does it better. KDE is absolutely moronic in it's approach to bundle all the shit that you need with unnecessary crap imo.

3 hours ago, finest feck fips said:

But when people who don't even know their basic tools strut in like they're haxx0rz because they managed to copy and paste the install instructions for an ‘elite’ distro, coming in hot, talking shit about the quality of the work of others, spewing /g/ memes about ‘bloat’, pointlessly namedropping internet culture wars like ‘Qt vs Gtk’ for perceived clout? They're spewing brain poison, actively dragging down the quality of discussion and thought all around them. Shutting down fraudulent, elitist, zombie-like ricer culture is a public service.

In all the years I have been using linux, I was yet to meet someone so opposed to user ease as you. 

 

>namedropping internet culture wars like ‘Qt vs Gtk’ for perceived clout?

Ah, yes. I who use Pygtk for writing stupid gui's is namedropping culture wars. Nice one, smart guy.

 

>spewing /g/ memes about ‘bloat’

>coming in hot, talking shit about the quality of the work of others

So most of your argument is that since I haven't contributed to the KDE project, hence I cannot criticize it.

 

>They're spewing brain poison, actively dragging down the quality of discussion and thought all around them.

Care to elaborate?

3 hours ago, D-reaper said:

For guys like these, give them the simplest option where it's all done for them. Basically nothing they have to build entirely from the ground up.

My entire argument was that there should be a kde-applications-minimal package as well. But since criticism on a piece of FOSSware is not valid, I am a braindead scriptkiddie who is installing arch linux to flex on reddit. Not the first time I have gotten this crap from linux people. 

3 hours ago, D-reaper said:

Funny how people come in and expect royal treatment. Eh? I personally, would have just said install KDE Neon. That, or Garuda KDE Barebones.

The machine had outdated specs, that is why I installed arch. Considering the machine is going to be used as a firefox bootloader, hence I don't think that the underlying distro would matter that much.

I already used arch and liked the aur(I have arch running on a raspberry pi as a home server) I also liked KDE(well, I was one of the few who liked their glossy redesign in the early 2010's). Also KDE is like Windows(minimally); 1+1=2, hence install kde on arch. I installed it and later removed the crap that I disliked. I was just annoyed by the amount of things that KDE loads in by default. That is why I wrote this post.

 

I was kinda frustrated at that point in time, hence my original post was provocative. I apologise for that.

[D-reaper]

7 minutes ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

No, that is Qt. KDE apps are developed by the KDE foundation.

I installed the kde bundle, because any sane person would need konsole, dolphin, ksysmon etc on a gui system. There was no way to install something like KDE minimal when I was using the system.

So you want me to run 4 piped apps to run a simple KDE install? Gnome does it many times better. Heck, xfce, cinnamon, lxqt etc everyone does it better. KDE is absolutely moronic in it's approach to bundle all the shit that you need with unnecessary crap imo.

In all the years I have been using linux, I was yet to meet someone so opposed to user ease as you. Go look at kubuntu, the fedora kde spin and basically everything else, they will put in crap with different names.

 

>namedropping internet culture wars like ‘Qt vs Gtk’ for perceived clout?

Ah, yes. I who use Pygtk for writing stupid gui's is namedropping culture wars. Nice one, smart guy.

 

>spewing /g/ memes about ‘bloat’

>coming in hot, talking shit about the quality of the work of others

So most of your argument is that since I haven't contributed to the KDE project, hence I cannot criticize it.

 

>They're spewing brain poison, actively dragging down the quality of discussion and thought all around them.

Care to elaborate?

My entire argument was that there should be a kde-applications-minimal package as well. But since criticism on a piece of FOSSware is not valid, I am a braindead scriptkiddie who is installing arch linux to flex on reddit. Not the first time I have gotten this crap from linux people. 

I already used arch and liked the aur(I have arch running on a raspberry pi as a home server) I also liked KDE(well, I was one of the few who liked their glossy redesign in the early 2010's). 1+1=2, hence install kde on arch. I installed it and later removed the crap that I disliked.

What. Ever.

 

You're doing things the hard way. Just download Garuda Linux KDE Barebones. It's Arch based. Cased closed.

[WolframaticAlpha]

1 minute ago, D-reaper said:

ust download Garuda Linux KDE Barebones.

 I was under the impression that Garuda is heavy. The machine was quite weak. I believe that a minimal install of debian+kde would be nice as well.

[finest feck fips]

2 hours ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

No, that is Qt. KDE apps are developed by the KDE foundation.

The KDE Frameworks are built on Qt, but they are not Qt. KDE applications are built on the KDE Frameworks.

 

2 hours ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

There was no way to install something like KDE minimal when I was using the system.

I'm not sure what you mean. You can install whatever KDE packages you want. If you want just the desktop environment, on Arch it's just the plasma-desktop package. If you want that plus a few basic utilities, including a system monitor, you can pull that in with plasma-meta. Then you can install whatever additional KDE apps you want.

 

2 hours ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

KDE is absolutely moronic in it's approach to bundle all the shit that you need with unnecessary crap imo.

KDE is not responsible for what packages are in your distro, or for how they are bundled into metapackages or groups or whatever. That's on the distro.

Arch is a distro that makes a point of eschewing convenient metapackages providing opinionated distributions of upstream desktop environments, which is what something like a kde-applications-minimal group would be.

The nearest equivalent to what you're asking for is what you get with

pacman -S plasma-meta dolphin kate khelpcenter konsole

which is roughly equivalent to installing Plasma alongside the kde5-baseapps package from Void Linux, for example.

 

2 hours ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

So you want me to run 4 piped apps to run a simple KDE install?

No, the pipeline you're referring to is what's required to minimize a ‘bloated’ installation like you carried out, not what is required to ‘run a simple KDE install’.

You're right that using a a 4-command pipeline to do something like that is not very ergonomic. Complicated removals tend to go that way on Arch, especially when you use package groups with pacman -S (because it's the same as installing every package in the group manually). Even under better circumstances, dealing with orphaned packages is annoying because Arch's support for dealing with them is not very well-integrated.

 

2 hours ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

I was kinda frustrated at that point in time, hence my original post was provocative. I apologise for that.

I know you're apologizing to someone else here, but I'm sorry I got so bitchy, too.

 

2 hours ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

Care to elaborate?

Trying to optimize performance by choosing the right KDE-based Linux distro is nonsense in the same way as obsessively tuning the CFLAGS for your whole system. The obsession with ‘bloat’ and the whole discourse around it is dogmatic, confused, overstated, and fanboyish. (That is intended as a statement of a pet peeve of mine with how I see software discussed online, not as a criticism of you.) The choice to use Arch juxtaposed with complaints about not being offered an OOTB-type easy button is self-contradictory, and it suggested to me that your interest in Arch was more grounded in its meme status as an ‘advanced’ distro than in a particular need. That way of choosing Arch for bad reasons strikes the same nerve for me, it's part of the same super shallow culture and discourse you see surrounding Linux on /g/ and Reddit.

Much of that is an expression of my frustration with subcultural trends I took you to be a representation of because of language in the OP. That doesn't necessarily make my reaction to you a fair one, even if you hold some related opinions that I disagree with.

I also don't mean to say that bloatware is not a thing, or that code bloat never matters. But here with the kde-applications group in Arch, we're talking about installing 170+ desktop applications that in total uses less than 10% of the size of a blank Windows 11 install, with very few real applications on it. Trying to get a super lightweight KDE/Plasma installation doesn't make a ton of sense, and neither does the general obsession within the Linux community with ‘bloat’.

Anyway, if you're happy with KDE on Arch now that you've removed the software you don't use, that's great.

[Whiskers]

I'm glad things have calmed down a little, but just as a reminder - please be civil and respectful to one another on the forum. Insults and snide comments, veiled or otherwise, aren't acceptable. It's completely unnecessary to resort to vitriol and anger over a difference of opinion.

 

10 hours ago, finest feck fips said:

These forums are essentially unmoderated and populated predominantly by gamers, and it shows. The closest analogue to the way the majority of posters here talk about software is the way that normies talk about sports teams: 90% hot air. And in that talk, it is utterly routine to see tons of language that is not only insulting, uncivil, dismissive, or exaggerated, but rife with nonsense and misinformation.

 

If you have a concern with the state of moderation in a given thread or section, specific or abstract, please talk to a member of the mod team about it. If there's anything we can do to improve the forum we're interested to hear it. And if something / someone is breaking the forum's rules, please use the report button to alert us to it.

 

The site is moderated by a group of volunteers; ultimately, we can't individually vet each and every topic and post. We rely on the community to inform us when there's a problem so that we can take the appropriate action.