Is Ubuntu bloated?

I usually use Debian, but I installed Ubuntu for the first time.

I liked that wireless etc are all working in Ubuntu; but I get the sneaking feeling that there is bloat in Ubuntu.

Debian: 5.9GB install
Ubuntu: 7.9 GB install. I installed more things in Ubuntu; but I would have thought they would only require 500MB extra or so.

Debian: 115 processes running
Ubuntu: 270 processes running.

 

That sounds about right.... The only reason I switched back to Ubuntu from my Debian test install, was because I couldn't get the soundcard or ethernet adapter working and didn't feel like spending a night troubleshooting and hacking to get them to work. But I did notice that Debian used less disc space than Ubuntu.

 

Yes it is, it is also more compatible out of the box. I do think that a minimal ubuntu install that covers basic apps and all hardware would be way better than the one that comes with fspot, rhythm, u1, etc...

 

This. Ubuntu is one of the best Linux distributions in terms of out of the box usability, which was one of the major development foci in recent releases. It's also the reason for its wide user base: upon installation, there's less need than in the average Linux distro to scramble around and install different packages for different pieces of hardware.

Personally, it's actually also the reason I run Ubuntu on my secondary computer - Ubuntu was able to install a compatible driver for an obscure WiFi card I couldn't find anywhere on the internet.

For this out of the box functionality, I think I can spare a gigabyte or two.

 

I have never gotten it to use more than 600MB of memory...

 

I think there's bloat. You ask anyone who has used other distros and they will probably say so. Especially, Debian users.

The only reasons that you would have more difficulty installing some drivers in Debian is because of Debian's strict adherence to non-free policies. Therefore, you need to find or know which repository to add for your drivers, namely the ones that include the non-free firmware you need. That's most likely the reason for wifi problems, that the drivers aren't installed properly.

Ubuntu and varieties based on Ubuntu just don't have the same strict policy so they often have the firmware/drivers installed already.

 

Personally I think Mint takes it up a notch or two.

 

How are you guys doing this, my install uses 1.2 Gb on boot with just some xterms running (no firefox). I do have 4GB of ram though.

 

Actually, I used to have 2.5GB on my Linux box... but when I realized it was using only 250MB to 360MB of memory based on my used, I downgraded the machine to 1GB and upgraded my wife's Windows PC from 2.5GB to 4GB.

 

Are you running Ubuntu or Kubuntu?

 

My arch setup is using about ~170mb when idle. I've noticed once a ~600mb usage when I was compiling kernel while watching 1080p movie.
And yeah, ubuntu is seriously bloated. My arch fits in 4.2gb with all needed crap installed (compiling stuff, openoffice, gimp, codecs etc).

 

Hmm...Upon rebooting I get 775MB memory (with no firefox, but 6 xterms running.

I am using Ubuntu, with gnome and compiz installed.

EDIT: "system monitor" shows 600MB memory used; but "top" shows 1GB memory usage

 

I dont mind the extra install space used.
But if it runs 250 processes/uses lot of memory and slows down the system; that is an issue.

Anyone know how to control the running processes? I cannot figure out where the 130 extra processes over the debian install are coming from.
System monitor shows there is an ssh-agent running...dunno why; I'm not running a ssh server here..

Debian had rcconf to control startup services; but on ubuntu rcconf doesnt show anything ssh.

 

Ubuntu is definitely bloated. Of course, you can always use XFCE, Openbox, or LXDE.

 

That doesn't matter. Xubuntu got the rep of being slightly more bloated than Gnome-Ubuntu! XFCE is supposed to be much lower in resources!

Ubuntu became a signficant P.R. machine of very few critics except for maybe users of other distros. Publicity, marketing and a lot of supporters who seem to defend Ubuntu a bit too rigorously. Also, Ubuntu doesn't commit as much as other contributors to upstream and seem to go on their own with projects so it is no surprise to me that it gets a bit bloated.

 

Ubuntu may have a bigger footprint than most other distros, but I wouldn't consider it bloated. Compared to Windows, Ubuntu is "light and capable" to me.

I use Ubuntu 10.10 on my ThinkPad T510 every day. I dual-boot with Windows 7, but find myself spending less and less time on Windows 7: the GRUB menu times out and goes by default to Ubuntu. The system, the apps and my files currently occupy over 4GB of disk space. Initially, this was about 3GB. My RAM, at 4GB, is actually "bloated" because, with concurrent applications (and multitab Chrome instances), RAM use is typically less than 1GB.

I like Linux, but I no longer enjoy having to take care of the details (or optimizing for the sake of optimizing). So, some degree of "helpful" bloat would be fine by me.

 

I have always thought 'bloated' is relative. If you have a Core-i7 and 8Gb of ram, well, 170Mb worth of processes is the same as 500Mb. You won't feel a difference. But relative to other Linux distros, it is quite heavy. But it comes with the package. You can't ask for a distro that's this convenient and fully packaged and still ask for it to be as slim as, say, Arch or Gentoo

 

I'm typing this on a very old Dell Latitude CPx, Pentium III, 512MB RAM, 30GB HDD, "Windows 98" palmrest sticker. This laptop never had WiFi, so I bought a LinkSys WPC54G PCMCIA card (and a two-port USB 2.0 PCMCIA) for cheap on eBay. It took me a little while to get the wireless card to work, but here I am! Disk use is 2.7GB at this time. With VLC piping in classical music and Chrome managing 10 tabs, RAM use is about 280MB. Everything runs smoothly.

Ubuntu 10.10 is not bloated nor heavy, not to this 11-year-old laptop.

 

Thats imperssive, did you do any optimizations? Is it running gnome?

 

^^^ I dusted it off a packing box recently and decided to "revive" it. Yeah, the baby is running Gnome and, no, I did not do any serious work on it yet. The only challenge was to get the ancient WPC54G to work.

I'm pleasantly surprise that the screen is still bright and vivid, no dull dimming at all. The aspect ratio is classic and the physical construction is solid.

EDIT: I was earning real income developing real code on this machine! It traveled with me to England, Germany, India and Japan.

 

Pah! New-fashioned toys!
I'm running Debian on a desktop PC with an AMD K6/2 CPU (450MHz), 320MB RAM and two HDDs with 18GB together.
This machine is already heavily tweaked. It once had a 350MHz K6/2, 128MB RAM and only a 8GB HDD. There you feel the difference between a slim and a bloated distribution.

btw:
Where did you get a laptop with a Pentium III and a 30GB HDD 11 years ago? The desktop PC I mentioned is mostly of the same age and last time I had a laptop in my hands with similar specs like yours a sticker on the underside read something like: "manufactured 2001"

 

Out-of-the-box, I'd say Ubuntu is bloated. This is easily remedied, however.

 

I replaced the original hard drive with a Hitachi at one point. I was using this laptop before I switched to a T41.

The model is Dell Latitude CPx H500GT. The two RAM sticks are SDR: they were upgraded parts themselves.

 

Summing up the whole thread:
Debian/Arch etc. -> you install what you need,
Ubuntu/Mint etc. -> you remove what you don't need.

 

You can have both the other way around:
Install Debian (without deselecting the desktop in tasksel) or Chakra and start to remove things you don't need.
Or install Ubuntu from the alternate CD.

 

I'm pretty happy with my minimal Arch linstall
I've started my linux journey with Debian in 2008. Ditched it about year ago because it was a real mess (you always mess your first linux distro xd).

 

You've got to note that ubuntu includes more things(like social network integration) and more running daemons and such than debian, ubuntu adds a lot of things that just aren't visible.

 

If those things arent of use to me, its bloat. How do I go about stopping these unnecessary (fro me ) daemons?

 

You can go to Startup Applications to disable most of them. As for the daemons: you don't. It's not running anything crazy and most of them are pretty critical.

And honestly, if you're afraid of resource usage that much....it makes no sense.

 

I have tried many flavors of Linux on my ultra-slow Inspiron 600m and keep coming back to Ubuntu. Nothing beats Ubuntu for out of the box functionality. It is not terribly slow, support base is fantastic, rapid update cycle and the repositories have loads of stuff to check out.

Fedora- Bloated, limited software, slow boot and startup
Mandriva - Same as above
Yoper - Black screen on install
Gentoo - Don't get me started...
Sabayon - Desktop crashes, no GUI
Suse - Slower, wireless is flaky
Knoppix - Pretty good but wireless does not work
PCBSD - Complete disaster. Will not install.
Solaris - GUI is a joke. No wireless or ethernet.

 

PCBSD and Solaris aren't even linux

 

What have you been smoking to make that statement?
Bloated & limited software?
Make up your mind...

 

Dude, if you want to use Unix based systems you can't give up on those little glitches. Stop being lazy, make a close friendship with Google and spare some time fixing bugs - you will learn a lot while doing it.

 

No one can be resourceful for you.

 

An apology to Ubuntu...aparently on the debian install, apy-get was not storing packages in cache, but ubuntu was. On running apt-get clean, here are the final figures.
Debian: 5.9GB
Ubuntu: 7.1GB

A 1.2 GB difference. I've installed some packages more on Debian, but on the other hand, I've also installed the LXDE desktop manager on Debian but not on Ubuntu

 

What doesnt make sense of making the system faster?

 

It's not going to make it any faster. Your PC is as fast as your hardware. And if you've got almost ANY PC from the last 3 years, ubuntu's going to run pretty damn fast. The single biggest speed cap *might* be HDD, but otherwise, Ubuntu's not going to use all of your resources anyways.

 

I've got a couple of laptops that are like 7 years old, I'd like to know how to tweak Ubuntu to make it run blazing fast on those computers

 

You could always run openbox My system uses 40MB RAM on cold boot. Not intentional, I just like minimalism.

 

Dunno about Ubuntu but I'm feeling pretty large right now. Merry Christmas everyone.

 

You just assumed that I tried nothing to fix these problems...

 

You too man!!

Me too!!

Merry Christmas everyone!

 

Same back at ya !!

 

What do you think of LXDE? I have it on my older Thinkpad, running Debian Testing. Oh, man, I hate it! Also, if you compare web sites of the DEs, LXDE has not updated their site or provided any info on versions at all. Imho, they just don't care or their team is so small they can't get anything done.

I really hate that they have absolutely nothing regarding input device options and no GUI or utility whatsoever for changing keyboard inputs/layouts. Apparently, you have to install a utility from another DE! Outrageous. I wish I installed xfce. I know I can install the xfce desktop but it's going to bring in all these extras. Will probably do it anyway. I guess I can remove LXDE afterwards?

I just can't believe how primitive LXDE is. I would NOT release something like that yet.

 

I like it! It's light, it's fast and it doesn't get into your way.

Yes, unfortunately their PR team is a little small. You're welcome to change that!

Code:

setxkbmap COUNTRYCODE

You're free to leave it.

Which means you didn't understand the idea of open source. That's a pity.

 

Upgrade the CPU ....seriously, RAM usage isn't the bottleneck anymore. You really got it to run as fast as it could.

By the way, I use LXDE day in and day out. Of course I don't do anything fancy other than work, so that might be one of the reasons I never whined about it's lack of features compare to gnome or kde. But it works.

 

Doesnt openbox run under gnome?

I like the 40m ram usage -- what OS and desktop manager are you using?

 

Openbox works under Gnome or any other desktop environment, including Gnome. If you're asking for the default option, Openbox is used by LXDE. Gnome uses Metacity by default.

If you're looking for a standalone wm as a lightweight alterative for your desktop environment I'd also suggest to try fluxbox, icewm and jwm. There are for sure many others, but these are the only ones I actually used.
A totally different aproach are tiling wm's, which might seem to be strange if you never used one, but they can come in quite handy, especially if you have a limited set of frequently used programs that you like to see in parallel.

 

Thanks. My requirements are:
1. I like compiz --- the two things I use are zooming into individual windows, and turning the brightness of individual windows down.
2. Some sort of taskbar which shows which windows I have currently open.
3. Ability to adjust DPI-

I have used fluxbox before, but I didnt spend time to see if I could get compiz/dpi etc working on it. Is it possible?

Unrelated to desktop managers, I also use gnome console or KDE´s konsole -- I would like a lightweight terminal program with tabbing and ability to change foreground/background colors. Any lightweight alternatives?