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#1 2009-02-14 15:49:38

deadlylife
Member
Registered: 2008-12-24
Posts: 120

Debloat

Hello, I have recently been slimming down and "debloating" my Arch setup, mostly by clearing out daemons and modules that I use about once a month and finding faster alternative to my programs.
What are some good, lightweight alternatives to the following:
Firefox
Pidgin
Rhythmbox
Also, what is the best way to minimize boot time?

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#2 2009-02-14 15:52:50

initbox
Member
Registered: 2008-09-27
Posts: 172

Re: Debloat

Pidgin really isn't bloated though. Finch is the terminal version of Pidgin, it might be somewhat lighter. If you're willing to ditch MSN and other protocols for IRC, you can't beat Irssi.

You can try replacing Firefox but currently, IMO, there is no better option. Try Midori (crashes often, I hear) or something.

Replace Rhythmbox with mpd + some frontend like Sonata.

You can minimize boot time by removing unneeded services and daemons and trimming the start-up scripts.

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#3 2009-02-14 16:19:44

moljac024
Member
From: Serbia
Registered: 2008-01-29
Posts: 2,676

Re: Debloat

I wouldn't call Pidgin bloated, but if you really want to, you can replace it with a nice lightweight console based IRC client and use bitlbee to access your MSN/ICQ/Jabber etc. accounts in it.

The choice would then be between irssi and weechat. Try both, I found that I liked weechat more...

There is no real alternative to Firefox.

Rhythmbox, however, can be replaced by a bunch smile
mpd, cmus, cplay, moc, audacious...

I myself use moc wink


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#4 2009-02-15 00:08:50

Square
Member
Registered: 2008-06-11
Posts: 435

Re: Debloat

For those three programs, I would say keep Firefox and Pidgin but ditch Rhythmbox for mpd + a client.
Personally, I switch in between Sonata and ncmpcpp, using mpc every now and then for quick changes. Whatever floats your boat there.

Another thing, you can minimize firefox's memory usage by eliminating all unnecessary extensions.

Last edited by Square (2009-02-15 00:16:52)


 

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#5 2009-02-15 00:49:05

Wintervenom
Member
Registered: 2008-08-20
Posts: 1,011

Re: Debloat

deadlylife wrote:

What are some good, lightweight alternatives to the following:
Firefox
Pidgin
Rhythmbox

Opera, center-im, and Sonata/MPD or Consonance or GMM, respectively.

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#6 2009-02-15 01:30:22

boily
Member
From: Montréal
Registered: 2007-03-17
Posts: 75
Website

Re: Debloat

You may try out Kazehakase. I use it infrequently, when I have problems with Firefox.

Audacious is my player of choice. It can play many obscure audio formats, and it makes me nostalgic with its Winamp 2-like interface.


A centipede is an inchworm that has switched to the metric system.

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#7 2009-02-15 01:34:28

cactus
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Registered: 2004-05-25
Posts: 4,622
Website

Re: Debloat

Firefox: no recommendation
Pidgin: if you just use xmpp, then go with gajim instead of pidgin. pidgin is horrible.
Rhythmbox: quod-libet maybe? or mpd+something I suppose. I never got into mpd myself. *shrug*


"Be conservative in what you send; be liberal in what you accept." -- Postel's Law
"tacos" -- Cactus' Law
"t̥͍͎̪̪͗a̴̻̩͈͚ͨc̠o̩̙͈ͫͅs͙͎̙͊ ͔͇̫̜t͎̳̀a̜̞̗ͩc̗͍͚o̲̯̿s̖̣̤̙͌ ̖̜̈ț̰̫͓ạ̪͖̳c̲͎͕̰̯̃̈o͉ͅs̪ͪ ̜̻̖̜͕" -- -̖͚̫̙̓-̺̠͇ͤ̃ ̜̪̜ͯZ͔̗̭̞ͪA̝͈̙͖̩L͉̠̺͓G̙̞̦͖O̳̗͍

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#8 2009-02-15 01:38:54

userlander
Member
Registered: 2008-08-23
Posts: 413

Re: Debloat

Opera might be better than FF. I saw benchmarks somewhere recently showing that windows firefox through wine is even faster than native linux ff. roll

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#9 2009-02-15 01:52:59

MarCustomized
Member
From: Detroit, MI
Registered: 2008-09-05
Posts: 116

Re: Debloat

Firefox => Kazehakaze, Opera, Links, Midori [beta]
Pidgin => Pidgin-Light, Pidgin-Mini [both have about the same functionality of regular Pidgin without all the deps]
Rhythmbox => MPD + Graphical/Console Frontend

deadlylife wrote:

Also, what is the best way to minimize boot time?

Building your own kernel, stripping out unused modules. backgrounding startup daemons, using less virtual terminals, not using a login manager

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#10 2009-02-15 17:37:30

Gigamo
Member
Registered: 2008-01-19
Posts: 394

Re: Debloat

You could have a look at bitlbee to replace pidgin.

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#11 2009-02-15 21:16:11

elliott
Member
Registered: 2006-03-07
Posts: 296

Re: Debloat

I've been playing with Midori for a few days as a replacement for Firefox, so far, I love it.

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#12 2009-02-22 01:51:17

LeoSolaris
Member
From: South Carolina
Registered: 2008-03-30
Posts: 354

Re: Debloat

Firefox - Kazehakase

Pidgin- no idea to be honest. (for some reason my fingers what to type pigden for pidgin)

Rhythmbox - I'm going to say MPD and a nice front end.


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#13 2009-02-22 01:55:24

dannytatom
Member
From: Seattle, WA
Registered: 2009-02-02
Posts: 229
Website

Re: Debloat

For pidgin you could give pidgin-light and pidgin-mini a shot.


dnyy in IRC & Urban Terror

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#14 2009-03-11 19:47:26

nunobaba
Member
From: paris, france
Registered: 2009-03-11
Posts: 17

Re: Debloat

Another replacement candidate for FF is Arora. The browser runs on top of QtWebKit, looks pretty much like Google Chrome, has the anonymous mode. It still lacks many useful features (like plugins) but its developpers community is active. I think it would be evolve into something Linux users could prefer to Google Chrome.

Last edited by nunobaba (2009-03-11 19:49:15)

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#15 2009-03-11 19:57:01

brisbin33
Member
From: boston, ma
Registered: 2008-07-24
Posts: 1,796
Website

Re: Debloat

i love gajim it's very light.  but it's only good for gtalk and not aim/msn etc.  i hear you can get a transport for that but i never got any of them working.

i just moved to mpd+sonata and am happy so far.  i always had mpd for streaming but used amarok while at my desk (then an xcompmgr bug made me ditch all kde apps.  sidenote: graveman > k3b)

as said before, you really can't get away from firefox.  unless your a CLI junkie, then elinks is pretty shweet.

about bootup, i'd background everything in DAEMONS= (except maybe network and syslog) and boot into init 3 by default.  sure you'll still have to login then startx but it'll feel so much quicker because the login prompt is up in ~20 seconds.

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#16 2009-03-11 19:58:07

haxit
Member
From: /home/haxit
Registered: 2008-03-04
Posts: 1,247
Website

Re: Debloat

How about Midiori instead of FF?


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#17 2009-03-11 20:06:55

SkonesMickLoud
Arch Linux f@h Team Member
From: The D of C
Registered: 2008-09-20
Posts: 178

Re: Debloat

+1,000 for MPD + client.  I personally use Sonata when I want to listen to specific songs, and MPC piped through my Openbox menu when I listen randomly.

For firefox, you could look through AUR for a version of it, or Swiftfox built for your architecture.  Swiftfox-prescott opens a bit faster for me, but performance seems the same once it's open.

Last edited by SkonesMickLoud (2009-03-11 20:07:14)

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#18 2009-03-11 20:21:24

anrxc
Member
From: Croatia
Registered: 2008-03-22
Posts: 834
Website

Re: Debloat

i love gajim it's very light.  but it's only good for gtalk and not aim/msn etc.  i hear you can get a transport for that but i never got any of them working.

I use Gajim for all my IM networks for years now. Because for me Gajim is the best IM client (we have now) in general.
Beautiful thing with Jabber (being an open network) is that you don't need to have a user account to use a transport provided by some other server; You can have a JID user@somehost.tld but use transports on other servers (if your own does not provide them). Jabber server list on http://www.jabberes.org/servers/ is ok for finding a suitable one. Once selected you open Gajim's "Service Discovery" dialog, enter domain of selected server and register with a transport (you enter your login information for that particular IM network), the transport will then be added to your roster just like any other "contact" (along with all your contacts from that network). If you, or anyone else is willing to give this another try it should work, it's not complicated at all.

For ICQ and AIM there is also an alternative, as AOL developed their own XMPP/Jabber gateway for their users (I never tried it as transports are really ok), more info about that here: http://wiki.jabber.org/index.php/AOL_Alpha

Last edited by anrxc (2009-03-11 20:24:01)


You need to install an RTFM interface.

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#19 2009-03-11 20:27:06

brisbin33
Member
From: boston, ma
Registered: 2008-07-24
Posts: 1,796
Website

Re: Debloat

anrxc wrote:

i love gajim it's very light.  but it's only good for gtalk and not aim/msn etc.  i hear you can get a transport for that but i never got any of them working.

I use Gajim for all my IM networks for years now. Because for me Gajim is the best IM client (we have now) in general.
Beautiful thing with Jabber (being an open network) is that you don't need to have a user account to use a transport provided by some other server; You can have a JID user@somehost.tld but use transports on other servers (if your own does not provide them). Jabber server list on http://www.jabberes.org/servers/ is ok for finding a suitable one. Once selected you open Gajim's "Service Discovery" dialog, enter domain of selected server and register with a transport (you enter your login information for that particular IM network), the transport will then be added to your roster just like any other "contact" (along with all your contacts from that network). If you, or anyone else is willing to give this another try it should work, it's not complicated at all.

For ICQ and AIM there is also an alternative, as AOL developed their own XMPP/Jabber gateway for their users (I never tried it as transports are really ok), more info about that here: http://wiki.jabber.org/index.php/AOL_Alpha

thank you for that, i'd love to get my work aim list in gajim. 

i tried the exact method you mentioned (with multiple servers that claim to have aim transports) at least a dozen different times but can never get it to show up in the "discover services" box sad.  i'll try your second method though and see how that works out.

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#20 2009-03-11 22:08:59

dusanx
Member
Registered: 2008-11-28
Posts: 132

Re: Debloat

Conkeror instead of firefox. Runs on XULRunner so it's basically firefox engine but is lighter than firefox.


Gnome -> Openbox -> Awesome -> XMonad -> dwm .
http://github.com/dusanx/uzbl/

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