Arch Linux

chochem

Member

From: Denmark

Registered: 2008-03-02

Posts: 176

Website

"The more stuff you install, the slower your computer gets"?

Ever since I switched from Windows to Linux, I've been wondering if this pretty rooted idea is actually true in a linux (andparticularly in an Arch) setup:

The more stuff you install, the slower your computer gets

Since most Windows software will insinuate itself into various system files and configurations, this is obviously true for Windows. A bloated win.ini will take years of your lifetime. I figure it's probably even true for a lot of Linux distrobutions that emulate this sort of behaviour. And so, since I use Openbox, I've tended to avoid stuff with heavy dependencies (Gnome- and KDE-dependencies in particular).

However, I can't really see any reason for this behaviour in Arch. My supposition is that the GNOME/Qt stuff will only be loaded when they're actually needed - unless I myself integrate them in my setup. Is this correct? Could I theoretically install all of KDE and GNOME, never use any of it and my system performance will only decrease as a result of a slightly more messy root partition?

brebs

Member

Registered: 2007-04-03

Posts: 3,742

Re: "The more stuff you install, the slower your computer gets"?

They are confusing "sits on hard drive doing nothing", versus "has a memory-resident applet, which probably is badly-written and leaks memory".

However, RAM today is tons cheaper than yesteryear, so it's much less of an issue.

Then there's the CPU usage, of course.

iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: "The more stuff you install, the slower your computer gets"?

? Could I theoretically install all of KDE and GNOME, never use any of it and my system performance will only decrease as a result of a slightly more messy root partition?

you wouldnt notice a thing.

Even if you did use it... all it would do is make a config in your home dir. The moment you stop using it, it'd be the same as before.

Last edited by iphitus (2008-09-24 12:33:02)

dav7

Member

From: Australia

Registered: 2008-02-08

Posts: 674

Re: "The more stuff you install, the slower your computer gets"?

Yes. You could install GNOME, KDE, XFCE, fluxbox, openbox, and so on until you had GBs of windowmanagers installed, yet if all you used was startx and ran openbox from .xinitrc... well, heh, you shouldn't have any performance issues, except maybe, like you said, a slightly more messy /.

As far as I know, GNOME stuff will start HAL and/or DBus depending on what you're running, and KDE will run a resident loader that keeps *something* in memory, I'm assuming the toolkit data such as images and the like.

Also, if you run the GNOME session manager, that will keep itself in memory and monitor your session - I use GNOME's session manager with Openbox, and tint2 for a tray, FYI, and although this is a comparatively slow PC, it's not that bad, and is very, very usable.

'ps aux', 'ps axfu' and/or htop can be very helpful finding out what's running, allowing you to nuke it, google it, etc.

-dav7

---

Windows was made for looking at success from a distance through a wall of oversimplicity. Linux removes the wall, so you can just walk up to success and make it your own.
--
Reinventing the wheel is fun. You get to redefine pi.

chochem

Member

From: Denmark

Registered: 2008-03-02

Posts: 176

Website

Re: "The more stuff you install, the slower your computer gets"?

Cool - thanks for the replies guys. Guess I'll start filling my harddisk with any old junkware that catches my fancy, then