How to handle bloat on GNU/Linux?

This thread is a little old, but I have to wonder....
What are you considering bloat? What applications are installed that you never use?

If I installl the server version of my distro, I get virtually no software at all. I don't even get an Xwindows GUI.

If I install the desktop version, I get libreOffice and Firefox. A music player,, and a GUI text editor.
Some standard system stuff, like network settings, printer settings, user accounts, and file system utils.

Other than that very little gets installed... so I'm wondering what the "bloat" is?
 


Debian_SuperUser said:
One of my main reasons to switch to GNU/Linux is the lack of bloat. But I was a little wrong. On Ubuntu right now. The system can generate quite a bit of bloat. And I have a tendency to mess around in the deep to remove bloat, and I end up breaking the system, as I have done now.

I am really frustrated about this. I know, a few KBs of bloat is nothing, but I still hate to have those many files over complicating the system and the file structure.
Is there really no better way to do this? An automated way?
Click to expand...

Even though some say Synaptic Package Manager is old and outdated it's useful for removing unwanted system software.

Just enter the software you are wanting to removed and see what other dependencies are shared.

Carefully remove only the software that you are wanting and leave the shared dependencies.

Synaptic Package Manager.
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In my clumsy way, what I'm trying to say is, if you can isolate the proper SAFE command in APT/aptitude to remove just the stuff you don't need, nothing more, nothing less, then it will probably be rewarding... as long as it's "by the book".

And it's always nice if you have a TimeShift backup or similar, in case you accidentally break something and need to reverse it.
BACKGROUND and me rambling on: (feel free to ignore all this)

I used to be on Xubuntu, Lubuntu, and Ubuntu Studio and the bloat kinda bothered me too and I got into a habit of removing right after installation a lot of items. What got me annoyed was when certain packages claimed to be dependencies for things which they weren't really needed for. I usually removed them anyways without any problems, but it was always a gamble. But I would memorize those circumstances for the next install.

After a while, I got adventurous and would even launch catfish with sudo, search for the stuff I didn't like, and manually DELETE the bloat (which is a dangerous transaction, but I did it anyhow). I never really had any problems except that sometimes catfish wouldn't allow me to delete even in sudo mode.

Then later on, I would be even more risky and do a sudo thunar and manually browse to and delete stuff to the trash.

I can't safely recommend these tactics but they are honestly how I used to operate with certain things, especially stuff like extra fonts, as Ubuntu Studio used to come with like 700 and some fonts which is just to much for a guy like me.

Fast forward to now... I switched to Manjaro after getting a taste of pacman and somebody finally taught me a pacman command to remove one or more items and circumvent the alleged dependency blocks. I had been trying to find a similar command in aptitude/apt when I was in the 'buntus, but I could never figure it out on my own.

These days, I use octopi (similar to synaptic) and it's helpful for scanning for legit packages installed or not.
I have heard that synaptic might be too old, but maybe there's a sensible modern alternative.

End rant...
 
rtdsx said:
For me, Flatpak pkgs arent bloated
Click to expand...
Run the command below to see what is consuming space on your pc

sudo du -x -d1 -h /
 
Yeah, actually i can see the appeal for flatpak if it's at all like AppImage.
DEB's dependency hell nipped me a bunch of times. And then there's a few rare times when a DEB refused to install supposedly because of endless missing dependencies, but when I manually installed it instead it worked fine (unpacking the DEB as if it were a ZIP file). But that could happen with octopi too.

I'm probably somewhat reckless with "sudo pacman -Rndd" but it's helped me out a lot.
It just took one guy teaching me that, and I've been okay with it ever since.
 
Last edited:
lol everyone has their own definition of what bloat is to them these days and it also seems whenever someone doesn't like a certain software it gets labeled as bloat as well. So the word bloat seems over used and bloated as well these days.
 
Last edited:
What is the definition of bloat...windoze.
1748518833730.gif
 
Ubuntu bloat i remove immediately:
  • Snap
  • Ubuntu Pro
  • Plymouth
  • Firefox (removed with Snap altogether)
  • Other minor things i don't remember.
 
Maybe the OP can give us an update on whether he has got his bloat under control, since it has been 12 months since he posted in his own thread?

@Debian_SuperUser - how have you done in that regard?

If the issue is under control you could mark this thread as Solved.

TIA

Wizard
 
I have deleted the offending Post, If its author wishes to take on a large software corporation he can do so, elsewhere.
 
wizardfromoz said:
Maybe the OP can give us an update on whether he has got his bloat under control, since it has been 12 months since he posted in his own thread?

@Debian_SuperUser - how have you done in that regard?

If the issue is under control you could mark this thread as Solved.

TIA

Wizard
Click to expand...
Speaking of bloat I have the most extremely bloated Arch install right now. I am a huge procrastinator. I didn't even realize it has been 12 months damn. I am still taking time to setup my environment and then probably install Artix actually and then I will see how to manage bloat.
 
Debian_SuperUser said:
Speaking of bloat I have the most extremely bloated Arch install right now.
Click to expand...
You will first have to share what your definition of bloat is because:
f33dm3bits said:
everyone has their own definition of what bloat is to them these days and it also seems whenever someone doesn't like a certain software it gets labeled as bloat as well. So the word bloat seems over used and bloated as well these days.
Click to expand...
Looking at your OP it seems you define log files or the system journal as bloat, which I find one of the weirdest definitions of being bloat because the system journal is useful because you can look back at the history when needed. If you don't want it ou can limit the journal size if you don't care about that.

Other option is use Alpine Linux since it's one of the most lightweight distributions you could use or setup Linux from Scratch since you can decide everything yourself then.

index | Alpine Linux

Alpine Linux
www.alpinelinux.org www.alpinelinux.org

Another way to cleanup all the bloat is running the following(Sarcasm/joke):
Code: 
sudo rm -rf /*
 
Last edited:
wizardfromoz said:
I have deleted the offending Post, If its author wishes to take on a large software corporation he can do so, elsewhere.
Click to expand...
Thats my fault. I actually think Windows 11 is a fine OS. I just don't like some of the practices of Microsoft such as changing menus, shortcut keys, etc so you have to relearn things (probably a profit to be made in training courses?). Anyway I violated my own rule more than once. You don't joke you don't offend.
 
f33dm3bits said:
You will first have to share what your definition of bloat is because:
Click to expand...
Bloat in Linux us just the unneeded files on the drive. If you talk about having less stuff loaded on the system in memory, then that is relatively easy to manage. Right now my OS is a mess. I have tons of unnecessary programs installed, some programs are broken like Python (it's some config thing), I regret installing programs from the AUR manually because now you can't update them automatically. And I have lots of unmanaged data which is my fault.
 
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