Newbie Musing About Installed Size

jimbo-62 · 2006-08-31 14:10:40

I recently installed two distros on my PC. Arch Gimmick and Debian Etch. I installed both distros the same way. First I installed the "base" system. Then I installed the minimum amount of additional software required for my needs/wants: X window, KDE, Mozilla-Firefox, packages necessary to use my HP 3210 printer, Kaffeine and multimedia packages necessary to play .mpg and .wmv video files with sound, samba and packages necessary to browse shared folders on a WinXP PC on my local network.

The Arch base system was 575.0 MB while the Etch base system was 460.6 MB. The Arch total installed size is 1647 MB while the Etch installed size is 1200 MB. I am surprised that Arch is 247 MB larger than Etch.

Arch boots from the Grub menu to a full KDE desktop in 40 seconds while Etch takes 43 seconds.

Any comments from more experienced Arch users?

Good luck, jimbo

ingvildr · 2006-08-31 14:12:40

this is a guess but maybe because debain has seperate dev packages, try compiling a kde theme on debian and you will see .

brazzmonkey · 2006-08-31 14:56:43

that's 447 MB more for Arch.

i'm only assuming here :
- if you happen to compile some stuff from AUR, it can quickly eat some spare space.
- dependency management may have pushed some additional software in.
- debian is i386, arch is i686, maybe this can impact on binaries' sizes.

1/2 Gb is not much nowadays, isn't it ?

apart from the 3" at boot time, do you feel arch is faster, more responsive than etch ?

jimbo-62 · 2006-08-31 15:43:16

Hmmmmmmmmmm, 247 - 447, I guess talking about "new math" won't help? :oops: I have plenty of HD space, so the size difference is not a problem. But, I thought Debian would be prone to bloat more than a lean mean Arch system.

I did notice one thing about Arch. I did the base installation from the CD, then I did # pacman -Syu. The upgrade installed about an additional 100 MB.

Other distros seem to have caught up with Arch with regard to speed and responsiveness. I don't feel much difference between Arch and Etch, Minime93, Vector or Zenwalk. But, I am not a power user, just browsing the Internet, printing, sharing files with a WinXP PC, playing videos, etc.

Thanks for the thoughts, jimbo

Chman · 2006-08-31 16:17:59

jimbo-62 wrote:

I did notice one thing about Arch. I did the base installation from the CD, then I did # pacman -Syu. The upgrade installed about an additional 100 MB.

Don't forget that pacman keeps downloaded packages, as aptitude does.

$ pacman -Scc

This will clean the whole pacman cache.

And as ingvildr points out, debian doesn't install sources with packages whereas Arch does.

jimbo-62 · 2006-08-31 16:43:50

Chman wrote:

jimbo-62 wrote:
I did notice one thing about Arch. I did the base installation from the CD, then I did # pacman -Syu. The upgrade installed about an additional 100 MB.
Don't forget that pacman keeps downloaded packages, as aptitude does.
$ pacman -Scc
This will clean the whole pacman cache.
And as ingvildr points out, debian doesn't install sources with packages whereas Arch does.

Thanks for the reply. Well, if Arch stores source, that could be a big factor on installed size.

Good luck, jimbo

jimbo-62 · 2006-08-31 16:51:21

I did a quick and dirty speed test between Arch and Etch. I measured load time for Firefox, emelfm, Kaffeine, Konsole and Konqueror.

Firefox Emelfm Kaffeine Konsole Konqueror

Arch <3 <1 <2 <1 1

Etch <2 <1 <3 1 1

Not really a very presise test, I just started each application several times while watching a clock. But I think it does represent the relative "feel" of the two distros.

Sorry for the poor column line up, I don't know how to make it any better.

Good luck, jimbo

Mandor · 2006-09-01 07:39:08

If yout machine is not near the low end of i686 (i.e. an old pentium), speed difference won't be significant. Looking at the boot and application start times, I think it is not, actually.

jimbo-62 · 2006-09-01 12:52:56

Mandor wrote:

If yout machine is not near the low end of i686 (i.e. an old pentium), speed difference won't be significant. Looking at the boot and application start times, I think it is not, actually.

You are correct, my PC is a 2.4 GHz P4 with 1Gb of ram. Not the latest and greatest, but definitely not a low end i686.

Good luck, jimbo

Arch Linux

#1 2006-08-31 14:10:40

Newbie Musing About Installed Size

#2 2006-08-31 14:12:40

Re: Newbie Musing About Installed Size

#3 2006-08-31 14:56:43

Re: Newbie Musing About Installed Size

#4 2006-08-31 15:43:16

Re: Newbie Musing About Installed Size

#5 2006-08-31 16:17:59

Re: Newbie Musing About Installed Size

#6 2006-08-31 16:43:50

Re: Newbie Musing About Installed Size

#7 2006-08-31 16:51:21

Re: Newbie Musing About Installed Size

#8 2006-09-01 07:39:08

Re: Newbie Musing About Installed Size

#9 2006-09-01 12:52:56

Re: Newbie Musing About Installed Size

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