Big and Bloated.

iphitus · 2005-07-30 04:24:12

Boy I'm bored today!

These are two words people love to throw around, about KDE, GNOME or any other program that suddenly gets some more features..... Heck I've even heard them used to describe e17.

How do you define bloated, and big?

I define something as big, when it takes up a substantial amount of space, in the linux world, a reasonable size to me is >40mb. KDE and GNOME, would be big. But being big isnt neccesarily a bad thing, if the space is used well, and you have the space to spare. Really, I dont mind sacraficing some hard drive space for Gnome, I have plenty to spare. Space isnt such an issue nowadays, with larger ram and larger hard drives. So for those with the aforementioned, something 'Big' really, shouldnt be much of an issue.

Some go a bit far and call something that's big, bloated.

I define something as bloated, when it is big and either:
a) contains excessive features or suffers from feature creep (MS Word), or b) is drop dead slow

So to me, Gnome isnt bloated.

It may be big, it takes some space, but I can account for that space, and see how the individual components take up the space, and by doing that, I can see that these components add usefull functionality. Not all of it is usefull to me, but I can see how it is to others.

e17, is neither big nor bloated.
Some call e17 bloated because it's modular. They see 10, 15 deps and think holy shit, thats heaps of space. But to be fair, the efl is tiny. People also unfairly include the efl with e17, when compare size. You dont do that with GTK2+GNOME though. So thats kinda unfair.
With e17, sure it's got lots of modules, but i can see what each is doing. And each has it's clear purpose.

I've seen people complain about dbus+hal, and maybe add ivman onto that too. They use negligable hard drive space, they use negligable amounts of ram, and rarely use CPU. I can't see the 'bloat' or 'bigness' there.

Rant over.

iphitus

elasticdog · 2005-07-30 04:32:14

a) contains excessive features or suffers from feature creep (MS Word), or b) is drop dead slow

I think you hit the nail on the head with that one. I personally don't pay as much attention to physical space that an application uses, but if it uses it well. I prefer apps that do one thing, and do it well...being trim in size usually is synonomous with that, but not always. However, you could argue that just because you have extra space/RAM/whatever, doesn't mean you want to use it all for one app...you gotta have breathing room

I think that most people would agree that having the same exact functionality in a smaller package would be preferable...

iphitus · 2005-07-30 05:06:29

I chose msword as an example there because, it's slow to start, and its big. Bigger than openoffice writer. It's over 50mb.

But I dont see anything new or more interesting in the current word to Word 97. Indeed, I find more
irritations, such as the popup baloons asking me to help make office better, or the different clipboard.

Somehow it got bigger, but I fail to see where it benefits more than the most obscure of uses.

I now use Abiword on windows, it's smaller and does everything i need -- in a smaller package -- too.

I'm happy to let gnome use ram, I know what it's using it for, and I dont mind,

iphitus

archdaemon · 2005-07-30 07:01:50

I agree with most of your post. There are some important distinctions to make and they're not usually made.

iphitus wrote:

How do you define bloated, and big?

If it doesn't run in 640K and fit on a floppy, it's big.

I'm halfway serious. Compare the amazing stuff a DOS Navigator or a Q&A (basic database/word processing program) could do and they resources they used compared to, say, mc or abiword.

Being serious, if I invoke an external program in a shell script when there's an internal command that will get the job done, I may have only added a few bytes to the program and slowed execution by milliseconds, but I've introduced bloat.

To call something 'bloated' in the strict sense is a factual assessment which requires knowledge of the code. But people (myself included) throw the term around loosely.

If an app is coded as efficiently as possible and takes 250MB, it's freakin' big, but not bloated.

But there's at least a third thing apart from them, and that's featuritus. I'd say this is really a separate issue from 'big' or 'bloated'. A tiny little app can have a silly feature that's efficiently coded. Ain't big; ain't bloated. But it's a mistake.

The problem with defining featuritus, though, is that one man's trivial feature is another's deal-breaking 'must have' feature.

Big is unfortunate; featuritus (excepting extremes) is basically in the eye of the beholder but isn't really a good thing; bloat is evil.

As far as my preferences, I can see those who say RAM and disk space is there to be used but this leads to the ever-ascending spiral. I prefer to keep something in reserve. I like to see my RAM being used, but I prefer to see most it in free in the '-/+ buffers/cache' line. And I like to have plenty of diskspace. Such diskspace as I use should be more my data than my system, because the system is there *for* my data. I just like trying to keep a system as small as (comfortably) possible because, no matter how I try, it's still going to take quite a bit.

So my theoretically perfect apps would be small apps with no bloat that *do* suffer a bit from featuritus. That way the system is light and responsive, yet can be configured how I like it.

deficite · 2005-07-30 16:33:10

These are all really good comments that all describe it perfectly. I used to be 100% minimalistic and tried my hardest to get the lightest solutions for everything. I then looked at my hard drive and saw that I have 40GB and I was using less than 1 GB of it and I would sometimes be irritated by the fact that the lightest solutions sometimes require caffeine and aspirine, which is a more expensive asset than a few more hundred MB's of space on my hard drive.

Oh, and even with KDE my system feels light and responsive to me.

deft · 2005-08-01 02:47:14

Regards "KDE" in particular, new users sometimes "skit" at it for being "bloated" - of course, they're typically unaware that you can primarily utilise kdebase (with dependancies) on its own, without the need for "the whole of KDE"....... you have to smile on occasion when they're pulled up over it

phrakture · 2005-08-01 03:37:07

iphitus wrote:

I define something as bloated, when it is big and either:
a) contains excessive features or suffers from feature creep (MS Word), or b) is drop dead slow
So to me, Gnome isnt bloated.
It may be big, it takes some space, but I can account for that space, and see how the individual components take up the space, and by doing that, I can see that these components add usefull functionality. Not all of it is usefull to me, but I can see how it is to others.

I'll agree with that to an extent... however, in my opinion, configurations can be bloated too.... the default gnome config has a million little useless applets and about 400 programs on the menu... I get lost just looking for firefox or gvim....

iBertus · 2005-08-01 03:57:38

I used GNOME for a long time before one day deciding that it was too bulky. Although I like nautilus and even metacity, I totaly hate gconf. (Maybe it offers advantages that I'm not familiar with but it seems to suck.) I don't consider GNOME bloated per se, as it provides many services that I find myself now looking for replacement for, and in a reasonable size. I do consider gconf bulky, poorly designed and a deviation from the nix ~/.program system.

I consider KDE bloated for no other reason than it feel bloated. I'm running an alright system (Athlon XP 3200+) and KDE runs just fine, but seems overrun with useless crap. Maybe if we had separate KDE packages for Arch it wouldn't seem like that.

Now, I'm using fluxbox with some luck. It's fast and doesn't leave much to be desired in terms of window management. Of course, I've now got to add some other apps to get things like icons and graphical file management. I suppose that in the end, it's all just a bunch of trade-offs.

iphitus · 2005-08-01 06:40:30

phrakture: really? on my current gnome system the menu's are all neat and fine. To be fair any issues with miscategorisation of the menus are because of mistakes developers, arch or of the app if the app included it, made with them.

and the applets, they've gone over that and cleaned that up really well too

iphitus

deft · 2005-08-01 06:59:52

iBertus wrote:

I consider KDE bloated for no other reason than it feel bloated. I'm running an alright system (Athlon XP 3200+) and KDE runs just fine, but seems overrun with useless crap. Maybe if we had separate KDE packages for Arch it wouldn't seem like that.

You can simply do:

# pacman -Sy kdebase

and it pulls in relatively little, and you're left with a fairly minimal KDE setup.

iBertus · 2005-08-01 07:20:41

I'll have to try this sometime and see what happens. Way back in the stone age (Red Hat 7.x) I used KDE for awhile and it was better than the competition. Maybe it's time to try it again.

sudman1 · 2005-08-01 10:14:09

I find gnome "bloated" because of the RAM needed to run it. I have 5 computers at home - 2 are decent with large amounts of RAM, so there's no problem on those. My other 3 systems are quite old though and my AMD K-62 333MHz laptop falls over trying to run gnome on 192MB RAM.

arooaroo · 2005-08-01 11:25:55

I must say that I think that "bloat" is all relative. The threashold increases as your PC gets more powerful. My current laptop is pretty well specced, and with 1Gb RAM I'm not terribly worried about large applications. I use KDE and I find it pretty rapid, even in comparison to Gnome and XFCE. Of course, on my old PC, KDE dragged a bit and the lightweight WMs were quicker. However, I always liked KDE as it didn't require much configuration (for my preferences).

I see some users here hacking with config files for various lightweight WMs like ion, wmii, fluxbox etc. It seems to me that many people suffer from the "Gentoo effect": you've got something that shaves a few milliseconds compared to normal, but it took you days to get there.

I personally have a shed load of RAM and a CPU that spends 99.9% of its life idle. I want it used goddam it!!! If KDE ships with extra apps I don't need, I don't use them. If it really offends, I could just remove their entries from the menu so I don't see them anymore!

phrakture · 2005-08-01 14:53:26

iphitus wrote:

phrakture: really? on my current gnome system the menu's are all neat and fine. To be fair any issues with miscategorisation of the menus are because of mistakes developers, arch or of the app if the app included it, made with them.
and the applets, they've gone over that and cleaned that up really well too
iphitus

Well, I haven't actually tried gnome in a long time... hell, I think I used gnome on arch only once.
I'd try it again, but I'm satisfied with the way I work now - I use the terminal for everything, so I don't need a file manager, et al. And I use firefox for browsing, so I don't really need much else... the only think I miss is a nice external "bar" app, which can't be easilly strapped into ratpoison or wmii (the 2 WMs I use most often)... anyway, I'm off topic... I guess I'm just biased... dibble told me once I was one of those people who though "if it's scriptable in less than 10 lines, then do it in a script instead of in the code", and I agree with that to an extent... to me, there's alot of stuff which I consider bloat that a normal person uses daily - if I can do it on the command line in less than 3 commands, it's not worth another app, IMHO. But I'm just being facisous (sp?)

dtw · 2005-08-01 15:10:39

For me it means adds functionality by default that I might not want

iBertus · 2005-08-01 15:24:38

dibblethewrecker wrote:

For me it means adds functionality by default that I might not want

I guess this is a good way of looking at it. Pretty much, any of the major DEs have way too many features.

jackmetal · 2005-08-01 15:27:33

Bloat is in the eye of the beholder.

I agree with phrakture: if I can script something, I prefer not to load another app. But.....then-again.....there are some things that I find 'convenient' that I like, even though they fall into the 'bloat' category.

Years ago, I used Gnome and have also used KDE in the past. Now, I find that I prefer WM's like Fluxbox. I've started piddling with FVWM (well actually, the bloated fvwm-themes)..... If I didn't like a little eye-candy (xplanet, etc.), I would absolutely be using screen or ratpoison as my WM of choice.

I saw that rasat (and a few others) have started putting up pkgbuilds for standalone kde apps. I 'like' that! There's not many KDE or Gnome specific apps that I use exclusively, but there are a few that I 'like' to use.

Gullible Jones · 2005-08-01 16:19:02

Gnome I consider rather bloated for two reasons: 1) the file manager is slow and eats a lot of RAM, and 2) GStreamer is integrated into it and cannot be removed without compromising Gnome's functionality. Now of course I can understand Nautilus eating up so much RAM, and the Gnome devs are trying to improve its speed IIRC... But should a freaking volume control applet really *require* GStreamer? Should removing a multimedia framework cause your settings manager to stop working?

But yes, bloat is, to a large degree, in the eye of the beholder. And I use Gnome... So take the above as you will.

arooaroo · 2005-08-01 16:38:36

When Murray designed the Maclaren F1 (which was in fact a road car, and not actually a foruma1 car) he used all the lightest materials to make the car as light as possible. He also added an excessively powerful engine. This car was fast - one of the fastest ever built (it should be at $1m per car) yet, it was so damn light that it had a tendency to take off. So, basically, a big fan was attached into the base of the car to "suck" it to the road!

The point is that it costs a lot (of time) to make some truly fast. Continuing the car analogy, it's not necessary the lightest that is the quickest, because the lighter the car, the less powerful the engine. And as you endevour to find more speed, you may unconsciously add a flaw into the design, e.g., making it difficult to implement the actual functionality!

Now, I'm not saying this analogy is a particularly good fit with software, because it isn't. Size to me isn't critical - it's more to do if the program carries all of its baggage with it all the time, or only when neccesary.

phrakture · 2005-08-01 16:56:50

Well my ideal car would then be one which had "snap in" parts.... hmmm I need a new engine... I'll just order one off ebay and click this here and this here... there we go replaced!
now I want a sunroof - *snap* *snap* replaced... ahhh

iBertus · 2005-08-01 17:21:46

phrakture wrote:

Well my ideal car would then be one which had "snap in" parts.... hmmm I need a new engine... I'll just order one off ebay and click this here and this here... there we go replaced!
now I want a sunroof - *snap* *snap* replaced... ahhh

Maybe you should go into business and start making such a machine. Hell, I'd buy a couple just so I'd have snap-on parts laying around free. I'm really shocked that someone hasn't tried to market a car with faceplates... like a cellphone. Don't like yellow? Well, just pop on a new flamingo pink, and haul ass down the road in style! Or something like that

dtw · 2005-08-01 17:47:52

Haul arse to the optician more like...

jftaylor21 · 2005-08-01 18:57:09

dibblethewrecker wrote:

For me it means adds functionality by default that I might not want

This does not bother me so much as long as I can disable it. What bothers me is when a program comes with a million features that are supposed to be "eye candy" or something like that and I cannot turn it off if I want to. That is what I consider bloat.

iphitus · 2005-08-01 23:11:04

ibertus: the Smart cars have pretty much got snap in panels. You do any damage, or want to change colour, you just go to where you bought it and they just put a new one on.

iphitus

iBertus · 2005-08-02 03:01:56

iphitus wrote:

ibertus: the Smart cars have pretty much got snap in panels. You do any damage, or want to change colour, you just go to where you bought it and they just put a new one on.
iphitus

Are these being produced/sold anywhere? I've not seen anything like that in the US, even at shows.

Arch Linux

#1 2005-07-30 04:24:12

Big and Bloated.

#2 2005-07-30 04:32:14

Re: Big and Bloated.

#3 2005-07-30 05:06:29

Re: Big and Bloated.

#4 2005-07-30 07:01:50

Re: Big and Bloated.

#5 2005-07-30 16:33:10

Re: Big and Bloated.

#6 2005-08-01 02:47:14

Re: Big and Bloated.

#7 2005-08-01 03:37:07

Re: Big and Bloated.

#8 2005-08-01 03:57:38

Re: Big and Bloated.

#9 2005-08-01 06:40:30

Re: Big and Bloated.

#10 2005-08-01 06:59:52

Re: Big and Bloated.

#11 2005-08-01 07:20:41

Re: Big and Bloated.

#12 2005-08-01 10:14:09

Re: Big and Bloated.

#13 2005-08-01 11:25:55

Re: Big and Bloated.

#14 2005-08-01 14:53:26

Re: Big and Bloated.

#15 2005-08-01 15:10:39

Re: Big and Bloated.

#16 2005-08-01 15:24:38

Re: Big and Bloated.

#17 2005-08-01 15:27:33

Re: Big and Bloated.

#18 2005-08-01 16:19:02

Re: Big and Bloated.

#19 2005-08-01 16:38:36

Re: Big and Bloated.

#20 2005-08-01 16:56:50

Re: Big and Bloated.

#21 2005-08-01 17:21:46

Re: Big and Bloated.

#22 2005-08-01 17:47:52

Re: Big and Bloated.

#23 2005-08-01 18:57:09

Re: Big and Bloated.

#24 2005-08-01 23:11:04

Re: Big and Bloated.

#25 2005-08-02 03:01:56

Re: Big and Bloated.

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