Why so big? (install size)

dave_the_stupid · 2009-12-04 18:03:22

Hi, I'm a relativly new linux user, but am actually finding arch to be the easyest distro I've used. I think its because of the fact that everything is out in the open, rather than hidden to make it "easy". It feels like computing with a layer or two of crud removed.
Anyway, I'm mostly happy with arch, but program installs seem to be massive. For example, I wanted to install visualboyadvance today, but the installed size is 95.40 MB, which seems far too big, as I have it installed on one of my other systems, with a different distro, and the size was more like 10MB, and about 20MB on my windows install, and that includes a GUI. I am running 64bit on this machine, but I also have a 32bit arch machine, and it seems to have similar huge disk space requirements.
Now this is iritating on my desktop machines, but makes arch unusable on my old laptop as it only has a 4gig drive. (With 3 gig usable, due to partitioning out the bad bits...)
I suspect the disk usage difference is due to the other distro (puppy) using stripped down libs and stuff to keep the size down. I suspect this is also why puppy makes me want to tear my eyes out sometimes. No offence intended to the puppy guys, I thought it was great, untill I tried to change anything.
Anyway, I would like to know,
1, why so much disk space is used,
2,Can I do anything to reduce this?
Thanks.

Edited to explain title better.

Last edited by dave_the_stupid (2009-12-04 18:05:18)

.:B:. · 2009-12-04 18:18:50

Arch is not the leanest of distros when it comes to installation size; but there is a lot that's in your own hands. 64 bit installations aren't multilib, you'll need a 32 bit chroot to run 32 bit applications; that eats more space than a multilib setup if I'm not mistaken.

Also, you decide what you install and what not. If you want Gnome or KDE (which, on a < 4 GB HD and an ancient system, is not the way to go if you ask me) you'll surely end up with a big installation. Nor is OpenOffice.org a good pick, I think that easily consumes 500 MB + by itself, once installed.

lustikus · 2009-12-04 18:19:06

many programs have heavy dependencies in order to run, so you need to download them also. Sometimes those are not needed and there are lighter versions in the AUR.
There is also a wiki entry "lightweight applications" you might want to check.

hokasch · 2009-12-04 18:27:51

visualboyadvance alone takes 2.43 MB. Pacman shows the packages that get pulled in as dependency, maybe its gtk?

dave_the_stupid · 2009-12-04 19:42:58

"Also, you decide what you install and what not. If you want Gnome or KDE (which, on a < 4 GB HD and an ancient system, is not the way to go if you ask me) you'll surely end up with a big installation. Nor is OpenOffice.org a good pick, I think that easily consumes 500 MB + by itself, once installed."

I'm using xfce4, no openoffice. I would like to use xfce4 on the laptop just to keep things consistant across my machines, but would consider something lighter if it performs badly.

"many programs have heavy dependencies in order to run, so you need to download them also. Sometimes those are not needed and there are lighter versions in the AUR.
There is also a wiki entry "lightweight applications" you might want to check."

Yup, that seems to be the problem. Will look AUR, see what I can find. Do you mean lighter versions of the dependencies, or versions of the programs with less dependencies? The lightweight apps in the wiki aren't really the sort of thing I'm looking for, although obviously something has to give on my old laptop.

"visualboyadvance alone takes 2.43 MB. Pacman shows the packages that get pulled in as dependency, maybe its gtk?"

There is gtkmm, this takes around 60MB. I am wondering if everything I install is going to have such large dependencies, or if it will sort of taper off once I already have the most common ones installed? (That seems like an awkward way to ask that question, but I can't think of a better way to type it...)

If I were to find a lighter version of gtkmm (for example) in the AUR, would pacman see this and not install the larger version, or would I have to edit something, or have I totaly misunderstood? Also, if there was a smaller version of gtkmm, it must have had something removed to make it smaller. Would this not cause problems?

Is there a way to make pacman report the size of each component instead of the total size of everything together? I found that I could use "pacman -Si (item name here)", but thats a pain to check each one idividualy.

Thanks again.

.:B:. · 2009-12-04 19:52:44

Pacman doesn't install anything from the AUR; the AUR is a collection of scripts to build packages from, similar to the BSD ports.

Gtkmm are the C++ bindings for GTK, I don't know why that would eat 60 MB (looks like a lot to me, probably includes dependencies too).

lucke · 2009-12-04 20:18:11

dave_the_stupid wrote:

Is there a way to make pacman report the size of each component instead of the total size of everything together? I found that I could use "pacman -Si (item name here)", but thats a pain to check each one idividualy.

Uncomment ShowSize in /etc/pacman.conf.

lilsirecho · 2009-12-04 20:33:04

Perhaps the install size accompanying the download info is based on the total size of the package with all dependencies (assumed to be installed by the download but not done because they already exist within the system).

Alternatively, perhaps they exist but are overwritten by the package install (thus insuring that the package will be correctly installed). This does not increase the installed data other than the new package depends and the package itself.

Perhaps the install sequence of a given package requires the dependencies to be integrated within already existing depends which need to recognize the new package...again only a minor change in installed data.

A grain of salt may be good to apply to the generality of install size.

tomk · 2009-12-04 21:53:39

B wrote:

Gtkmm are the C++ bindings for GTK, I don't know why that would eat 60 MB (looks like a lot to me, probably includes dependencies too).

$ du -h /usr/share/doc/gtkmm-2.4/reference/html/
47M    /usr/share/doc/gtkmm-2.4/reference/html/

That could be the issue....

Rebuild it without the docs (as Arch used to do ).

Allan · 2009-12-04 22:05:46

tomk wrote:

B wrote:
Gtkmm are the C++ bindings for GTK, I don't know why that would eat 60 MB (looks like a lot to me, probably includes dependencies too).
$ du -h /usr/share/doc/gtkmm-2.4/reference/html/
47M    /usr/share/doc/gtkmm-2.4/reference/html/
That could be the issue....
Rebuild it without the docs (as Arch used to do ).

And there should be a bug report filed to split those...

Misfit138 · 2009-12-04 22:07:15

Why so big?

dave_the_stupid · 2009-12-04 22:51:05

Wow, 47MB for docs.. Thats too much.
I'm rather drunk right now, so I'm not going to attempt a real reply.
Am I supposed to file the bug? I feel that I don't know enough to do it correctly.
Also, I think it would be good if pacman had an option to leave the docs out, as I always use the net to solve my problems, its standard practice for me to delete the man pages, they seem to take much space.
Ok, im going to go now, before I type something foolish.

.:B:. · 2009-12-04 23:43:28

Well you found it more or less, so yes. Just report that the docs should be split out into a different package.

dave_the_stupid · 2009-12-05 03:16:04

ok, I will do that. but not today.

Gen2ly · 2009-12-06 02:41:21

As an option I thought I'd mention LXDE. It would break the conformity b/t your computers but is considerably lighter in both resources and and dependencies.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-12-04 18:03:22

Why so big? (install size)

#2 2009-12-04 18:18:50

Re: Why so big? (install size)

#3 2009-12-04 18:19:06

Re: Why so big? (install size)

#4 2009-12-04 18:27:51

Re: Why so big? (install size)

#5 2009-12-04 19:42:58

Re: Why so big? (install size)

#6 2009-12-04 19:52:44

Re: Why so big? (install size)

#7 2009-12-04 20:18:11

Re: Why so big? (install size)

#8 2009-12-04 20:33:04

Re: Why so big? (install size)

#9 2009-12-04 21:53:39

Re: Why so big? (install size)

#10 2009-12-04 22:05:46

Re: Why so big? (install size)

#11 2009-12-04 22:07:15

Re: Why so big? (install size)

#12 2009-12-04 22:51:05

Re: Why so big? (install size)

#13 2009-12-04 23:43:28

Re: Why so big? (install size)

#14 2009-12-05 03:16:04

Re: Why so big? (install size)

#15 2009-12-06 02:41:21

Re: Why so big? (install size)

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