why everything is so big?

sean536

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in old times installation file was 700 mb; nowadays it is 2 - 5 gb and is only growing. why cant they keep and maintain one simple distribution, without increasing its size, constantly retiring systems and introducing new ones? why do we need this progress? in windows i understand it is for money, why in linux? i have mobile internet connection in 2g mode that gives comfortable speed 30 kbps, which was just fine on windows xp; with these new standards everyone has to have super fast cable connections. there are around 10 devices around me which are unusable only because of a bug in various new oss i have not heard of. they are forcibly making good hardware to go to garbage and be replaced with new. those good old standards are destroyed permanently and are not available to people who valued them.
 


I think the OS's size is driven by demand. Consumers the world over are demanding more....much more from the humble os. They want audio such as would be heard in a theatre....(read bigger,more complex sound card etc...and a better developed os to handle that.....and that is the thin end of the wedge. The browser on current os's is almost an os in its own right.

recent browsers do animations, gradients, image filters effects, JavaScript, 2D graphics (canvas), 3D graphics with WebGL, Audio generation, Gamepad (!), Video decoding, advanced client-side-storage, Peer-to-peer communication (WebRTC), Geolocation, WebSocket, WebCryptography, MIDI, access to mic/webcam, notifications,.....etc.....and ETC...

.....try asking Internet explorer to handle that little lot.

Another of the 'demand' items involves doing much more (DOM, CSS, Javascript)...and having more real estate to do it on... to also having more real estate (Multiple Monitors, massive increase in resolution: Computer Screens Getting Bigger: 1999 through 2011 ) - 800x600 vs 1920x1080 vs 4k... 8k and beyond... 1080 to 4k is quadruple the resolution... 8k is quadruple again.

The sum of all of this activity is a bigger OS....the kernel is bigger......it has to be.

I would be interested to know the devices around you which are unusable becasue of various bugs

Because the programs are bigger and able to accomplish much more, the internet speeds have to be seriously updated to meet the needs of the programs......and so it goes.

The majority of Linux Distributions are generally under 2 GB. I believe trhe current Windows 10 is around 3.5 GB

We have a number of members here who run many distros... @wizardfromoz and @poorguy , just to name two.
poorguy in particular runs various distros (OS's) on a variety of old hardware....nothing goes to waste !

I run Linux Mint 18.3.....have done for around 4 years.....i started with windows xp, many years ago......and it can stay exactly where it is...dead and buried. Ultra prone to infection amongst other frailties.
The great beauty of Linux....no AV necessary.....and the speed is breathtaking. I demand quite a bit from my OS.......and I get it...in spades.
 
Hello sean536,

Welcome to the forum.

I agree with you.

I think the devs have to keep up with all of the unnecessary media and gaming console and cell phone crapola of today's younger generation who has to have all of that crapola.

Even though Linux is open source there is still money being paid to someone somewhere under the table or above the table and I don't care what anyone says.

It's no different than Microsoft paying computer manufactures to only allow Microsoft UEFI / EFI Proprietary B.S. bios etc.

Software seems to need more code to add a higher level of security.

It also needs the additional code to collect user personal information for a better user experience.:rolleyes:

The old days of "Keep It Simple Stupid" (aka K.I.S.S.) are gone.

Yeah I'm a cynical bastard and in my world that's alright.

0.02 pennies worth.
 
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Skype for windows

Version
Skype (version 8) on Windows Desktop requires:
Windows 10 Version 1507 or above
Windows 8.1
Windows 8
Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit versions supported)
ProcessorAt least 1 GHz
RAMAt least 512 MB
Additional softwareDirectX v9.0 or higher



Skype for Linux

Linux
Version64-bit Ubuntu 14.04+
64-bit Debian 8.0+
64-bit OpenSUSE 13.3+
64-bit Fedora Linux 24+
ProcessorAn Intel Pentium 4 processor or later that's SSE2 and SSE3 capable
RAMAt least 512 MB
Additional softwarelibappindicator1 or GtkStatusIcon to make the tray icon work (optional)
 
i need a simple machine with simple os, without ANY security. just to install it, to run forever, without any updates and upgrades....etc etc

That puts you squarely in the middle of a dream world. It defies reality. I am more than double your age and have moved past that approach long, long ago
web browsers - do not open sites..?....which browser on which OS ?

mint - support till 2021-23. after that - again trouble with search of new system, reinstallation?....expecting nothing to change just to suit you is seriously unrealistic.
In fact the next version of linux mint, what ever it happens to be in 2023......can be installed including all programs and without losing data...same as it can be now. Your approach of not wishing to get to learn about 'improvements' or upgrades etc etc, removes any chance of doing this for yourself.
 
i need a simple machine with simple os, without ANY security. just to install it, to run forever, without any updates and upgrades.
Hi Sean, and welcome! It's nice to dream like that, but it is unrealistic unless you stay off the Internet. Without the updated security, if you get online, your computer will probably soon be compromised. Without updates and upgrades, when you buy a new printer... it will not work.

Technology does not stand still, and it does not cater (much) to antiques. Linux does better, in my opinion, of running older hardware... and almost everything I use is older. But even Linux has limitations. More and more distros are dropping 32-bit support, for example.

Sometimes you can install a newer Linux and get by (what I am doing). But sometimes you have to bite the bullet and buy a new computer, if your needs demand it. If photo and video editing are your thing, I would guess that you do need to stay somewhat current with hardware.... faster CPU's and more RAM. I don't need that kind of horsepower for web surfing, email, and LibreOffice.

Cheers
 
1) What distro are you using?
2) Is your computer 32 bit or 64 bit?
3) Does your computer have a make and model, or can you give us the basic specs?
4) How much RAM have you got?
 
You could always build your own, add or leave out whatever you don't want.

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/

But that's time consuming, and you have to have another distro temporarily to build from.

You could also do a "net install". For example centos and fedora (likely Ubuntu too?)
have "install over the network" iso's.

https://alt.fedoraproject.org/

https://wiki.centos.org/Download

But like others here have posted, what are you going to do with just a kernel and nothing else?

No Xwiindows, means no browser. There are CLI based browsers, but...

No security means no SSH or SCP.

If you don't want music players, office suites, browsers, media editors, source code compilers, or games, I would say you're in the minority. :)
 
it seems i cannot live under capitalism. i need a simple machine with simple os, without ANY security. just to install it, to run forever, without any updates and upgrades.
I can dig it and this gets as close as you can get to what you want.

I use it and it is a Debian based little distro that kicks ass imo.

The developer anticapitalista I believe is from Greece.



 
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in puppy linux there is old unsolvable problem - usb modem huawei e173 is not working (on some distros it is working, for ex ubuntu sees him). sakis3g not working. another thing without which for me computer becomes unusable is screen dimmer, and i guess the one from ubuntu will not work on any other distro.
 
Hi Sean, welcome to the Forum. Don't let my comments below run you off :)

It's called progress. In order to stay small and old, you can't progress. If you want a browser that is on 20mb, you can't have the current HTML 5 support, you'll only get HTML 2 (I pulled those numbers out of the air, not real numbers). If you want an OS that supports modern hardware and technologies, they need to ADD that on top of the support for the older hardware. You can't progress without growing bigger because you have to ADD onto everything. You can't add more functionality without growing in size.

Now with that begin said, Linux supports older hardware and software, way better than MS does. I have a core duo processor with 2 gigs ram running the current version of Neon and it works just fine. I put this computer together back in 2006 (Windows XP era) that's 13 year old hardware. There's no way Windows 10 would run on that thing. I have old Windows apps running on it, using Wine, that Windows wouldn't run in 7. So I can't feel sorry for you here. The only thing I see that you may need to do is buy a new hard drive to fit all the new software on. Those are pretty cheap these days, way cheaper than they were back in 2006. And because Linux is as great as it is, you can add this hard drive, rather than replace the existing, so you don't even need to reinstall Linux. You can just mount it to /home (or somewhere else) and move your home directories to it, which is where the majority of my disk usage is at.
 
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And just as an FYI, my first computer had a 20 MB hard drive and 1 MB of RAM (you were 7 or 8 at that time), I know all about hardware needs increasing over the years. I've spent countless $ with upgrades, usually because MS made the requirements. I can also tell you that you'll spend a whole lot less money if you do the hardware upgrades yourself vs purchasing a new computer. It takes a whole lot less technical knowledge now a days to do the upgrades yourself. You no longer need to pull out the manual and ensure you set all the pins in the right locations to have the right voltage going to your CPU and stuff. It's all plug and play really, Progress. Now you just have to ensure your motherboard, cpu and ram speeds are compatible. You don't necessarily need to buy a new case, a new CD/DVD ROM, hard drives, power supply, etc. Those can all be reused in your new computer. And if you're not a hard core gamer, you don't need top of the line hardware and can get away with an upgrade that costs at least half of what a computer costs off the shelf at the local computer store, or online.
 
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