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1 • Linux Packages (by Dan on 2021-01-04 00:25:48 GMT from United States)
I didn't bother counting everything included with the distro out of the box,but I use 4MLinux, and there is no package manager included with it,.
2 • MocaccinoOS (by FabioLolix on 2021-01-04 00:39:25 GMT from Italy)
MocaccinoOS also have Mate and KDE desktop
3 • If it runs, leave it be... (by Friar Tux on 2021-01-04 00:50:19 GMT from Canada)
I voted 'Unknown'. As I have state many times - ad nauseam - as long as the systems runs, and runs without a hitch, I don't care what's under the hood, or, in this case, how much is under the hood.
On a more festive note, I hope the DW team had a great Holiday and I wish you guys a fantastic and prosperous New Year!
4 • Synaptic (by Bob on 2021-01-04 01:37:55 GMT from United States)
For anyone using synaptic, just look at the status bar on the bottom.
On my Xubuntu: "1480 Installed"
5 • Linux Packages (by David on 2021-01-04 04:41:09 GMT from United States)
On my Crux system: 434 packages
+ a couple of other programs that I did not bother to package.
6 • No. of pkgs (by pin on 2021-01-04 05:23:22 GMT from Sweden)
680 on Void-musl and 202 on NetBSD
7 • Package Bloat (by Dr. Dave on 2021-01-04 05:30:13 GMT from United States)
How many packages are installed on my Linux system?? TOO MANY !!!
I knowingly have a lot of unused crap installed. After just now blowing thru it a bit, I was able to reduce it from 2379 to 2177-- Still too many!! I could probably get it slightly under 2000 if I devoted more time.
It's to be expected, though; the OotB convenience of MX apparently demands a certain amount of bloat.. Annoyingly, while hunting down the fluff, I discovered some peculiar dependencies. Some of the Apple / iDevice junk that comes preinstalled (for which I have no use) can't be removed without also removing Xfce's 'Power Manager' utility, as well as breaking an MX-specific meta package that seems possibly 'important'.. we'll see!!
A fun poll to remind me of how much I yearn to return to a less bloated system. It really wouldn't take THAT much work and I WOULD be happier with the user experience in the end, but ehhh-- nowadays, even though I could easily make the time to do it, I have almost zero motivation to properly rice a desktop; plenty more meaningful, non-computer things to do.
One of these days, though. Until then 2000+ packages will have to do.
8 • Number of packages (by eznix on 2021-01-04 06:57:40 GMT from United States)
The interest in the number of packages installed by any given Linux distro is utterly pointless. Each distro packages its software in slightly different ways (sometimes vastly different ways), making a direct comparison meaningless. Show me a person concerned that X distro only uses 500 packages to achieve the same result that Y distro achieves with 1500 packages, and I will show you very inexperienced user. I have the same software installed on my Debian system as I do on my Arch system. Each distro has very diffferent ways of packaging software, so the number of packages is quite different. However, both installs take up about 6Gb of hard drive space in the root partition. The number of packages means absolutely nothing.
9 • USB wear for permanent installation? (by Anon on 2021-01-04 07:16:53 GMT from United States)
Re Slackel permanent installation to USB, wouldn’t that kill the drive relatively quickly?
About a decade ago, I tried Debian (Lenny iirc) CLI netinstall on a CF card for a NAS. The non-cheapo card was toast after iirc a month or so.
10 • @ #8 Speaking in unnecessary extremes to rationalize belittling others (by Dr. Dave on 2021-01-04 08:00:49 GMT from United States)
Certainly the number of packages is not the only measure of bloat, but the value is definitely not 'utterly pointless' nor 'meaningless'.. of course, you're right about different methods resulting in a different number of packages for the same basic results, but show me a distro where you have the same software installed using only 1 package, as you would with 1500 in another and only then would I agree that it 'means absolutely nothing' .. it definitely means SOMEthing, unless you have no package management and compile 100% of the system from source.
I get your contrast of Arch vs Debian, but being that I tend to only use variants of Debian, it's pretty much an apples-to-apples comparison for me to weigh my current MX package count versus that of my previous antiX install. The antiX install took up less space BECAUSE it had less packages installed-- not because the packaging methods are vastly different from MX. Yes there are still bound to be SOME differences, but not many.
There is also the matter of additive versus subtractive customization; whether a user begins with a standard 'it just werx' release and whittles away at the bloat, to cut it down to size, or whether they begin with a minimal system and carefully install only what they need.. but I suppose that's a side issue and/or I'm just an 'inexperienced user' after 15 years of using Linux. LOL
11 • Number of packages (by Alexandru on 2021-01-04 08:53:43 GMT from Austria)
The number of packages may be misleading, because it depends on 2 important features:
1. Different packaging of the same software. In case your distribution's packagers decide to reuse as much of the code as possible, they usually end up with many tiny packages for some large software application, whose number may be well greater than 100. On the other hand, if you install the same application as snap, AppImage or something similar, it will be 1 package for the very same piece of software.
2. Pre-installed packages of your distribution. Especially if some of them are completely ignored and unused. Very seldom will somebody uninstall such packages. And if he will try, he will observe that such packages are installed as dependency of metapackage of their desktop environment, and uninstalling them will lead to uninstall whole desktop environment. That being said, there are 2 opposed strategy in providing software in distributions: minimalistic - which encourages manually installation of what you really need, and maximalistic - provide software for all common task even if you do not care about it.
Probably more relevant question would be: How many packages do you manually install after your distribution installation? I personally install less than 10 packages, but some of them (texlive-full) are metapackages, which depend on hundreds of other packages and take ~4 GB of storage when installed.
12 • Number of packages & TeXlive (by SuperOscar on 2021-01-04 09:51:57 GMT from Finland)
I voted ‘over 5,000’, wondered about that for a while, then tried `rpm -qa | egrep \^texlive | wc -l` and that gives me *3,481*. So well over a half of the installed packages on my system come from TeXlive.
13 • SystemD out of memory management (by Hank on 2021-01-04 09:58:41 GMT from France)
SystemD out of memory management problems were easily and elegantly solved by solved by installing antiX Linux which runs like lightning, Stable as the debian we once knew and Low system requirements, fantastic forum. Best of all NO System D.
14 • @9 USB wear (by Chris Whelan on 2021-01-04 09:59:52 GMT from United Kingdom)
Just for information, antiX and MX Linux limit writes when running live from USB. There are users who have had the same USB over several releases, and used daily.
CF and SD cards are generally less capable of multiple writes than USB, but seem to survive in things like the Raspberry Pi quite well.
15 • Number or packages (by James on 2021-01-04 10:23:46 GMT from United States)
There is no way to separate out system packages from user install packages, so I find the exercise totally useless.
16 • freebsd packages vs mint (by Will on 2021-01-04 10:29:05 GMT from United States)
After reading the weekly, I was curious just how many packages I had on my system(s). So, I fired up a console in FreeBSD and Linux Mint 20 and wow, massive difference. On my 6 month old FreeBSD 12.2 desktop and server, I had a measly 406 packages. Compare that with my pristine new install of Linux Mint 20, weighing in at a whopping 2009 packages, and it's no wonder my FreeBSD instance is so much cleaner and more stable. I didn't have access to my year old mint laptop or I would have checked it out, too, probably quite a few more packages, though.
17 • @15 (by pin on 2021-01-04 11:08:21 GMT from Sweden)
No, not on Linux but, on *BSD these are different things and ARE separated.
18 • Debian package count (by Head_on_a_Stick on 2021-01-04 11:32:37 GMT from United Kingdom)
@Jesse: the provided command will over-estimate the number of installed packages for a Debian-based system.
This is more accurate:
dpkg --list | grep -c '^ii'
On my system your command is out by 44 packages (2806 vs 2762).
HTH
19 • Packages and LTS (by cykodrone on 2021-01-04 12:40:47 GMT from United States)
3K+, I love fonts, so they put me up over 3K. I install everything plus the kitchen-sink (not this libsdl-kitchensink1, at least not yet), any game that looks like I might play (eventually), hack/crack tools, editors, multimedia, you name it, I got room for it, and I might use it, it gets installed. No sense letting some of these nifty packages go stale, and possibly deprecated, they're still useful and fun.
As for (free) LTS, back in the day, had better luck with Debian or Mint (yes, I know, Mint is/was based on Ubuntu, but they do custom quality control and tweaks). I found the *buntu (the offspring follow the momma distro) LTS release support to be flakey at best, and sometimes just dropping right off, even occasionally borking my install after a refresh and upgrades. Don't know what it's like now, heard the *buntus are more buggy than they used to be, especially after packing spywared. Not anti-buntu, just being honest. Some of the Arch based, etc, are rolling, perpetual bleeding edge, and never a reinstall (supposedly), but I guess that goes against the whole stable/LTS ideology. Have no clue what Debian is like now either, jumped ship and went to a no sys'd distro when the support for the last 'clean' Debian ended.
20 • # of packages (by Otis on 2021-01-04 13:54:35 GMT from United States)
First of all, thanks for the code to find that out. This Manjaro XFCE distro is home to over 1200 packages. I had no idea.
21 • Number of packages (by cor on 2021-01-04 14:16:00 GMT from United States)
My system reports 2510. I have ample memory and storage space. This is not an issue. The majority of the packages are system installed.
22 • MocaccinoOS (by OstroL on 2021-01-04 14:29:36 GMT from Poland)
"Sabayon project is rebranding to MocaccinoOS.
Migration to MocaccinoOS will work from any flavour of Sabayon, and we will keep pushing updates on the Sabayon Linux main repo until MocaccinoOS is fully bootstrapped and officially released to the world.
At the moment of writing, MocaccinoOS is not ready yet for daily usage, and we suggest you do not attempt to migrate any machine you rely upon just yet. That said, we welcome everyone to test out Mocaccino on any spare hardware you might have, or in virtual machines and provide feedback on where we might improve it."
So, it is not a young distro, but an old one, rebranding. "The new package manager, called Luet, which will eventually replace Entropy."
Maybe, we'd have to wait for a while to review MocaccinoOS, at least when there'd be a stable release.
23 • About "Opinion poll" (by Yuri on 2021-01-04 14:31:18 GMT from United States)
Hi and happy new year.
I'm interested to find out which OS use users who voted for item: "Less than 100"?
24 • 4090 packages! (by Matt on 2021-01-04 14:49:23 GMT from United States)
Debian testing on my workstation has 4090 packages installed! I use it for writing, video editing, 3D CAD, electronic circuit design, creating G-code for 3D printing, Python coding, and other stuff. I also have multiple desktop environments installed in case an system upgrade causes a problem with one.
25 • How to test pre-release distro (by Lin on 2021-01-04 15:23:53 GMT from United States)
How to test pre-release MocaccinoOS; https://community.mocaccino.org/t/welcome-to-the-pre-release-testing-category/69
26 • I just love Linux (by tom joad on 2021-01-04 16:18:45 GMT from United States)
One reason I love Linux is there is a command for discovering just about anything one needs to know about one's computer! Now that is truly open source in my humble opinion.
The Debian command I used produced a pretty normal 2101 packages on my laptop today. I would never have guessed the number would be that high. I suspect I am not alone in stating that.
Salud!
27 • Package Count (by ChocolateChipCookie on 2021-01-04 16:19:32 GMT from United States)
Wishing the options were more granular.
28 • Packages and "bloat" (by David on 2021-01-04 16:33:46 GMT from United Kingdom)
I'm always surprised by people who complain their system is bloated. I have 1756 packages installed and they occupy just 9 GiB. What sort of hardware do these people have that they can't find that much storage?
29 • @16 will: (by dragonmouth on 2021-01-04 16:49:56 GMT from United States)
"Linux Mint 20, weighing in at a whopping 2009 packages"
The default install of any Ubuntu-based distro dumps close to 200 language packs, 150 font packs, hardware drivers for almost all printers, video cards, Ethernet and WiFi cards on the market. If you total up all the unneeded packages, it could be close to 400 packages, if not more. So if you uninstall the unneeded and unwanted packages, you might wind up with a little more reasonable 1700 package version of Mint.
There seem to be two philosophies among the distro packagers for default installs. Either include only enough packages to provide a running system and let the user add more packages as needed. Or include everything, including the proverbial kitchen sink and let the user uninstall any unneeded package.
30 • @28 Dave: (by dragonmouth on 2021-01-04 17:09:11 GMT from United States)
"Bloat" is a relative term. If considered as a percentage of the entire storage device, "bloat" is not a problem. With 10 TB, 12 TB HDDs available relatively cheaply today, why worry whether one has 1800 packages occupying 9 GB or 5000 packages occupying 20 GB. In either case, only a minuscule part of the HDD is taken up. However, when "bloat" is considered in terms of overall percentage of unneeded/unwanted packages then in some distros it is serious. If you use most of the packages installed by default, then you have no "bloat". If, OTOH, you only use 25% of the packages then your system is "bloated". How many language packs do you use? How many hardware drivers? How many fonts? etc, etc, etc. Every package you do not use increases the "bloat".
31 • Package Count (by JonG on 2021-01-04 17:14:25 GMT from United States)
Using Jesse's method my count was 2454, the @18 alternative was 2445 - a difference of 9.
However, from the 2400+ New Year's Resolutions I made, only 9 are left.
I guess that means Life follows Linux...
32 • Packages included for install (by Otis on 2021-01-04 17:19:08 GMT from United States)
@29 dragonmouth said, "There seem to be two philosophies among the distro packagers for default installs. Either include only enough packages to provide a running system and let the user add more packages as needed. Or include everything, including the proverbial kitchen sink and let the user uninstall any unneeded package."
Yes I've noticed that, too. At the extreme ends of those two philosophies there are itty-bitty distros vs HUGE distros. Looking them over for usability should include your hardware/storage capabilities first, imo, then your needs as you peruse the spectrum of distros between those two extremes. I've wasted a lot of time over the just trying to find a distro that "just works." I'd search on "best distro of (year I'm searching)."
33 • The kitchen sink... (by Friar Tux on 2021-01-04 17:20:00 GMT from Canada)
@29 (dragonmouth) My preference is the second option. Give me everything and let me decide what to keep and remove. This is probably because when I first switched to Linux I had no clue as to what app/program did what job. It helped that the distro I chose dumped a truckload of stuff for me to play with. I think I only removed, maybe, four or five programs that sat there for a year, never used. Oh, and I've added three programs I can't do without.
34 • Packagenumbers (by MInuxLintEbianDedition on 2021-01-04 18:08:25 GMT from United Kingdom)
On my desktop, 1922, I think I use less than half of them.
On my asus eee pc 4G boxes, getting LMDE down to less than 1100 packages was satisfying. Less than 1000 on Devuan was fun
35 • @ 29 dragonmouth (by Will on 2021-01-04 18:54:41 GMT from United States)
Yeah, that makes sense. I'm not keen on uninstalling stuff that I didn't install though - dependencies are a pain to figure out/keep track of/keep from destroying stuff.
36 • @14 antiX USB (by Anon on 2021-01-04 19:51:04 GMT from United States)
Chris Whelan, thanks for mentioning antiX. I wasn't unfamiliar with antiX/MX, but I was completely unaware at how particularly nice antiX is for USB installs. I'll likely take that route, even though I bias towards Slackware-based distros. Thanks, mate.
37 • Re: @23 • About "Opinion poll" (by Oko on 2021-01-04 23:08:54 GMT from United States)
"I'm interested to find out which OS use users who voted for item: "Less than 100"?"
OpenBSD. Admittedly, I use kerTeX instead of the official TeX Live packages
http://kertex.kergis.com/en/index.html
but other than that and having only one web browser chromium-87.0.4280.88p0 installed (Firefox and Firefox-esr run great on OpenBSD), it is a standard desktop. When I say standard desktop, I mean I (my wife and kids) print, scan, download photos, play music and movies, read books, etc. I do a lot of text editing (mathematics) but since Julia is not ported to OpenBSD I have to ssh to my FreeBSD computing node when programming. If I was not doing as much scientific computing as I am doing now I could probably get away with AWK and Perl which are in the base of OpenBSD. I also use my smartphone for work-related Zoom calls. FYI Jitsi works fine (including video) but I have to use Zoom per my employer's requirement. Google classroom if you have kids of school age works out of the box (no screen sharing)
https://www.reddit.com/r/openbsd/comments/ish1yg/video_conferencing_with_openbsd/
They edit their documents in the browser. My kids do know enough TeX to write a term paper or similar but they are used to Google tools.
If you have to use Linux try Alpine. It should be about the same as OpenBSD but YMMV because of musl instead of glibc. I manage a few Alpine Xen Dom0 at work so I don't need glibc on Alpine but you will definitely need it to run desktop stuff.
38 • @35 Will: (by dragonmouth on 2021-01-05 00:28:19 GMT from United States)
Most of the time I use Debian-based distros and Synaptic package manager. It handles any dependencies flawlessly. In over 15 years I have not had any dependency uninstalled in error. I have not had the same experience with Ubuntu-based distros. When I try using Synaptic to uninstall software, it always wants to uninstall "ubuntu-minimal" and/or other system files. No biggie since I do not particularly care for *buntus. :-)
39 • @37 About "Opinion poll" (by Yuri on 2021-01-05 10:05:56 GMT from United States)
Oko, thank you very much for yoer answer.
Which DE (or WM) you usage on your OpenBSD?
40 • 35 • @ 29 dragonmouth Packages (by James on 2021-01-05 10:31:38 GMT from United States)
I also prefer a minimum install, adding only what I need. I use Ubuntu Mate, that gives you an option for both kinds of installs. I started using minimum installs on PC Linux years ago, and found I liked adding what I want better than removing what I do not want.
41 • Unwanted bloat (by cykodrone on 2021-01-05 12:03:38 GMT from Germany)
@7 First thing I do (in Synaptic), is turn off 'consider recommends as dependencies'. I also hate that I can't (surgically) uninstall unwanted bloat without its 'dependency tree' wanting to yank out half the system with it (nutty and ridiculous). When you go to the dentist, the dentist yanks out just the bad tooth, not the neighboring six teeth (3 on either side of the bad one). I mean, I could get fancy in the command line, and get some level of de-bloat satisfaction, but sometimes I just get sick of all the nonsense and just want to use my system. This is a big reason why I abandoned MS years ago, the constant maintenance, detective work, and digital surgery. I am OK with bloat that I allow, that is my pirogi.
42 • Slackware-based USB install (by whoKnows on 2021-01-05 12:53:06 GMT from Switzerland)
36 • @14 antiX USB (by Anon)
"I wasn't unfamiliar with antiX/MX, but I was completely unaware at how particularly nice antiX is for USB installs. I'll likely take that route, even though I bias towards Slackware-based distros."
Salix.
Just check the website.
43 • OS within OS (by whoKnows on 2021-01-05 13:01:20 GMT from Switzerland)
@37 • Re: @23 • About "Opinion poll" (by Oko)
"... having only one web browser chromium ... installed ... I mean I (my wife and kids) print, scan, download photos, play music and movies, read books, etc. ... I also use my smartphone for work-related Zoom calls. FYI Jitsi works fine (including video) but I have to use Zoom per my employer's requirement. Google classroom ... They edit their documents in the browser ... they are used to Google tools."
If "this was it", you need as many packages to get get audio, video and Google Chrome / Chromium running.
Chrome / Chromium is not a webbrowser - it is an "OS within OS".
There is a Chrome App for everything.
Except privacy.
44 • About drones and "Unwanted" ... (by whoKnows on 2021-01-05 14:14:42 GMT from Switzerland)
@41 • Unwanted bloat (by cykodrone)
Wrong as usual and as expected.
Less packages IS NOT neccessarily less bloat.
Just take a look at BSD. Unix (BSD) ist the best example.
Core (11 MB)
"Core is the base system which provides only a command line interface and is therefore recommended for experienced users only. Command line tools are provided so that extensions can be added to create a system with a graphical desktop environment. Ideal for servers, appliances, and custom desktops."
TinyCore (16 MB)
"TinyCore is the recommended option for new users who have a wired network connection. It includes the base Core system plus X/GUI extensions for a dynamic FLTK/FLWM graphical desktop environment."
CorePlus (106 MB)
"CorePlus is an installation image and not the distribution. It is recommended for new users who only have access to a wireless network or who use a non-US keyboard layout. It includes the base Core System and installation tools to provide for the setup with the following options: Choice of 7 Window Managers, Wireless support via many firmware files and ndiswrapper, non-US keyboard support, and a remastering tool."
http://www.tinycorelinux.net/downloads.html
45 • Re:39 • @37 About "Opinion poll" (by Oko on 2021-01-05 14:30:54 GMT from United States)
Calm Window Manager (cwm) comes with OpenBSD. I used it since OpenBSD crew forked the original cwm and made it part of the Xenocara (OpenBSD fork of X.Org). FYI OpenBSD ships with the cwm, fvwm (old BSD licensed one), and twm.
46 • Re: 43 • OS within OS (by Oko on 2021-01-05 14:59:57 GMT from United States)
"If "this was it", you need as many packages to get audio, video and Google Chrome / Chromium running"
What packages? audio and video drivers are part of OpenBSD OS. OpenBSD ships with sndio. Privilege separation and enhanced security both for audio and video.
https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-cvs&m=160918011003591&w=2
You need 100+ packages plus infamous glibc to have that on Linux.
"Chrome / Chromium is not a web browser - it is an "OS within OS"."
And the alternative is? Hearing crickets. Firefox which is also an OS within the OS with a cavitate of being designed insecurely so it can't be pledged and unveiled? Unfortunately, massive surveillance which relies on proliferation technologies like JavaScript has made use of browsers like NetSurf (my favorite) impractical.
"Except privacy"
Sadly my and I am sure your quest for privacy is about as successful as Winston Smith's quest for truth.
47 • ??? (by whoKnows on 2021-01-05 15:37:30 GMT from Switzerland)
@46 • Re: 43 • OS within OS (by Oko)
Unnecessary post, unless you misunderstood something badly.
--
"Chrome / Chromium is not a web browser - it is an "OS within OS"."
"And the alternative is? Hearing crickets. Firefox which is also an OS within the OS with a cavitate of being designed insecurely so it can't be pledged and unveiled?"
Did I ever claim anything else?
"OS within OS" means simply that there are browser apps for everything and anything.
All one needs is a running OS and a webbrowser and one can do almost anything.
--
"If "this was it", you need as many packages to get audio, video and Google Chrome / Chromium running"
"What packages? audio and video drivers are part of OpenBSD OS. OpenBSD ships with sndio. Privilege separation and enhanced security both for audio and video.
You need 100+ packages plus infamous glibc to have that on Linux."
The number (count) is irrelevant for what I said previously: "... you need as many packages to get audio, video and Google Chrome / Chromium running".
--
"Except privacy"
"Sadly my and I am sure your quest for privacy is about as successful as Winston Smith's quest for truth."
I did not say that I am looking for more nor for less privacy - I mentioned it as a simple "hard fact".
"The store" knows what App you downloaded when and where, how often did you use it and so on, and so on.
Some people can live with it, some not - I did not say I can, nor I can not.
--
So again, what did you exactly misunderstood (except all of it)?
48 • # of packages (by Otis on 2021-01-05 18:13:50 GMT from United States)
Artix 728 (after installing some needed stuff). Amazing distro. No systemd. You'll have to learn OpenRC command line stuff which veers a bit from Arch now.
49 • Nix Guru (by HortonHearsAWho on 2021-01-05 21:51:28 GMT from Germany)
Sounds more like disgruntled IT guy, fired for being a (wannabe) know it all. Some people need a fully working system with a GUI, and lots of apps. If a headless command line is your thing, good for you.
50 • PackageCount (by nanome on 2021-01-06 09:13:04 GMT from United Kingdom)
VoidLinux MUSL 64bit: I have two laptops
865 packages [308 shared libraries] XFCE4+bloat
665 packages [254 shared libraries] Openbox
both include essentials for daily work [Firefox, GCC, etc]. The "bloat" includes experiments over the years where I have installed packages and haven't deleted mess afterwards.
Interesting is the modern trend for almost every program to have its own shared library. There are many packages [eg fonts] which get dragged in silently by the package manager [xbps].
51 • Bloat (by Friar Tux on 2021-01-06 13:50:53 GMT from Canada)
While I don't really care much how many packages my distro piles into my machine (see @3), I do realise that there are a ton of I'll-never-use-this things on my laptop. The number of fonts, as mentioned elsewhere, is one. The number of background pictures, language packs, and apps/programs are another. However, if we pick one font as default to install, one language pack, one background picture, then the distro would be even more difficult to manage when you have to switch out the defaults for every country you try to release the distro in. I believe the better path is what we have presently, where we have "bloat" by default and can remove what we don't need or use.
On a side note, regarding language packs, I once removed all the packs I don't use (except UK and USA English) and when I tried to view a document with a non-Arabic/Latin script I got tons of little boxes where the letters should be. It was a nice experiment. Now I keep all the language pack that come with the distro. (Oh, at the time, I also removed all the "foreign fonts", which I now also keep.)
I also believe that with the amount of memory on today's machines, the extra packages really don't take up much space, and are basically out of the way, anyway.
52 • Packages (by Dino on 2021-01-06 14:42:51 GMT from Denmark)
On Ubuntu I have 1873, and on Debian (Testing, XFCE) around 1650 packages.
53 • Packages with Kubuntu (by Darkman on 2021-01-06 16:56:43 GMT from United States)
With a stock version of Kubuntu, I have 2,539 packages. (I've been living in a Debian/KDE world for almost 20 years now.)
54 • @51 Friar Tux: (by dragonmouth on 2021-01-06 17:18:15 GMT from United States)
"I also believe that with the amount of memory on today's machines, the extra packages really don't take up much space, and are basically out of the way, anyway. "
LOL! Then you run into a vicious circle of: Since there is now more RAM and storage available, apps run faster. But because there is more RAM and storage available cheaply, developers stuff more "features" (bloat) into apps, which makes them run slower, necessitating more RAM and storage. Rinse and repeat. Ad nauseam.
55 • Number of packages in MX Linux (by Jeff on 2021-01-06 19:54:37 GMT from United States)
If you would prefer more of a start smaller and build it up your way approach, one of the MX devs has made some base ISOs:
https://mxlinux.org/blog/mx19-3-base-4-new-isos/
I have tried it both ways and prefer build up over strip down, but seem to end up doing strip down more often because of what I start with.
My current main MX install is at about 1660 packages, but I have not really wanted to make and keep this minimal there are just some things I have no need for.
56 • choice to install big or build to suit (by Otis on 2021-01-07 14:35:26 GMT from United States)
@55 Yes we have that in the Linux world in general, but it's great to see more distros offering users those choices, not just as this or that desktop, but ISOs as small kits or nicely crafted, full featured distros.
57 • Sign of the times (by Barnabyh on 2021-01-07 16:40:24 GMT from Germany)
Quite like the idea of MX base install isos, but since when qualifies "the Fluxbox ISO uses only 260MB RAM at startup" as light? Not long ago I could run a LXDE desktop at 50 MB, admittedly on one of the cleaner distros like Slackware and Crux, and an Openbox !Bang desktop on a little over 200 with Dropbox also taking up 20 MB.
If Fluxbox didn't get a lot heavier then quite a few things are running in the background.
58 • Sign of the times (by anticapitalista on 2021-01-07 21:36:11 GMT from Greece)
@57 MX Linux has never claimed to be lightweight. Their fluxbox implementation is over xfce.
59 • bloat / language packs (by Titus_Groan on 2021-01-07 22:54:20 GMT from New Zealand)
@51: "However, if we pick one font as default to install, one language pack, one background picture, then the distro would be even more difficult to manage when you have to switch out the defaults for every country you try to release the distro in."
that is the job of the system installer. Calamares does not cut it for me.
suggest you look around at some other distros.
The install media of my preferred distro ships with more than 90 languages.
You, the installer / user, get to choose the installed langauge(s), no others are installed as default or dependencies.
Locales, more than 110, and I CAN choose more than 1 during install.
I speak English in an English speaking country, I dont want or need -zh_CN installed so choose not to install a distro that does not respect my choices. (nothing against China, personally).
Same with keyboard layouts, qwerty, azerty, who cares, lets have both installed and no others.
Timezones, lets have several enabled at once with the installer (during or after install). Local, USEastern, London, not difficult at all.
Agree with the installed fonts -hundreds included, 56MiB worth though, so maybe some bloat there, but easy enough to exclude from installation or to remove after install if I was pressed for HDD space.
But I would be in a hard place if 56MiB was going to save me!
Linux is all about choice, I have made mine.
60 • Poll missing "So many I'm constantly nagged to upgrade something inconsequential (by CS on 2021-01-07 23:13:21 GMT from United States)
Subj
61 • BLOAT (by Velho Rabujento on 2021-01-08 23:26:10 GMT from Brazil)
@59:
Yes, Titus_Groan, I also have nothing against China or any other country (including New Zealand), but I definitely do not need in my Linux installations a truckload of language-packs and keyboard-maps. This is what I call... USELESS BLOAT.
Why Linux installers are not "all about choice" as they should be?
O.K., I agree that a gazillion of pre-installed fonts is fine. Sometimes, I even install a bunch of extra fonts. This is what I call... USEFUL BLOAT.
Number of Comments: 61
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BEE free
BEE free (formerly BeeFree OS) was a desktop Linux distribution based on Ubuntu. It features the KDE Plasma desktop environment and various customisation, such as the inclusion of Epson printer drivers, GRUB customiser, Python 3 integrated with the Visual Studio code, and WPS Office. The project started life as a Linux Mint-based distribution with the Cinnamon desktop, but switched to KDE neon base in the third quarter of 2019, and then to an Ubuntu base in 2020.
Status: Discontinued
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