Arch Linux

ananthp

Member

Registered: 2011-06-18

Posts: 8

Package Sizes BIG with pacman/archlinux?

New to archlinux, loving it, but I'm starting to feel the binary packages are quite big. I haven't done a comparison, but just have a look at these -

# pacman -S firefox
resolving dependencies...
looking for inter-conflicts...

Targets (4): mozilla-common-1.4-1  mime-types-1.0-3  xulrunner-2.0.1-2
             firefox-4.0.1-1

Total Download Size:    0.00 MB
Total Installed Size:   87.83 MB

# pacman -S xmonad xmonad-contrib
resolving dependencies...
looking for inter-conflicts...

Targets (9): ghc-7.0.2-1  haskell-syb-0.3-1.2  haskell-x11-1.5.0.0-7.2
             haskell-transformers-0.2.2.0-1.2  haskell-mtl-2.0.1.0-1.1
             haskell-utf8-string-0.3.6-7.1  xmonad-0.9.2-1.2
             haskell-x11-xft-0.3-19.2  xmonad-contrib-0.9.2-1.2

Total Download Size:    59.24 MB
Total Installed Size:   772.55 MB 

# pacman -S denemo
resolving dependencies...
looking for inter-conflicts...

Targets (11): portaudio-19_20071207-3  guile-1.8.8-1  t1lib-5.1.2-2
              libgraphite-2.3.1-1  libsigsegv-2.6-1  zziplib-0.13.60-1
              texlive-bin-2010.1-8  texlive-core-2010.22154-1
              lilypond-2.12.3-7  gtksourceview2-2.10.5-1  denemo-0.9.0-1

Total Download Size:    131.61 MB
Total Installed Size:   352.75 MB

I know, lilypond, latex, haskell are pretty big packages. Still, 87 MB for firefox?!

Do packages across distros take up roughly same amount of space? (for instance, Firefox install size in Ubuntu vs Arch, with similar dependencies)

Xabre

Member

From: Serbia

Registered: 2009-03-19

Posts: 757

Re: Package Sizes BIG with pacman/archlinux?

It all depends on what package contains: compare firefox in arch, and firefox-* packages in Debian/Ubuntu.
Unike many other distros Arch has only one logical package per application (in 99% of cases), instead of spliting them into a dozen smaller packages (in Ubuntu it's firefox, firefox-dev, firefox-dbg, firefox-gnome-support, firefox-kde-support, firefox-branding, firefox-gnome-support-dbg, etc. — it's all just firefox here).

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: Package Sizes BIG with pacman/archlinux?

xulrunner is 80MB, firefox alone just 2MB.

wonder

Developer

From: Bucharest, Romania

Registered: 2006-07-05

Posts: 5,941

Website

Re: Package Sizes BIG with pacman/archlinux?

note that our packages doesn't include debug symbols

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ananthp

Member

Registered: 2011-06-18

Posts: 8

Re: Package Sizes BIG with pacman/archlinux?

(in Ubuntu it's firefox, firefox-dev, firefox-dbg, firefox-gnome-support, firefox-kde-support, firefox-branding, firefox-gnome-support-dbg, etc. — it's all just firefox here).

Interesting. I was puzzled to see makepkg compiling stuff with out all those dependent ****-dev packages installed. This explains it.

Army

Member

Registered: 2007-12-07

Posts: 1,784

Re: Package Sizes BIG with pacman/archlinux?

# pacman -S xmonad xmonad-contrib
resolving dependencies...
looking for inter-conflicts...

Targets (9): ghc-7.0.2-1  haskell-syb-0.3-1.2  haskell-x11-1.5.0.0-7.2
             haskell-transformers-0.2.2.0-1.2  haskell-mtl-2.0.1.0-1.1
             haskell-utf8-string-0.3.6-7.1  xmonad-0.9.2-1.2
             haskell-x11-xft-0.3-19.2  xmonad-contrib-0.9.2-1.2

Total Download Size:    59.24 MB
Total Installed Size:   772.55 MB 

I know, lilypond, latex, haskell are pretty big packages. Still, 87 MB for firefox?!

ghc is BIG, so that is really an unfair one

ananthp

Member

Registered: 2011-06-18

Posts: 8

Re: Package Sizes BIG with pacman/archlinux?

Yeah! 772 MB for a supposedly lightweight(?) window manager

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: Package Sizes BIG with pacman/archlinux?

Yeah! 772 MB for a supposedly lightweight(?) window manager

[karol@black ~]$ pacman -S xmonad xmonad-contrib
resolving dependencies...
looking for inter-conflicts...

Targets (9): ghc-7.0.2-1 [51,35 MB]
             haskell-syb-0.3-1.2 [0,20 MB]
             haskell-x11-1.5.0.0-7.2 [1,81 MB]
             haskell-transformers-0.2.2.0-1.2 [0,42 MB]
             haskell-mtl-2.0.1.0-1.1 [0,16 MB]
             haskell-utf8-string-0.3.6-7.1 [0,21 MB]
             xmonad-0.9.2-1.2 [0,56 MB]
             haskell-x11-xft-0.3-19.2 [0,09 MB]
             xmonad-contrib-0.9.2-1.2 [2,36 MB]

Total Download Size:    57,16 MB
Total Installed Size:   560,18 MB

Proceed with installation? [Y/n] 

If you find a way to drop ghc than it's really light.

ananthp

Member

Registered: 2011-06-18

Posts: 8

Re: Package Sizes BIG with pacman/archlinux?

If you find a way to drop ghc than it's really light.

xmonad badly needs ghc. Seems that after every change in configuration, it needs to be compiled with ghc.

Strategy: I'll stay away from haskell apps for now

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: Package Sizes BIG with pacman/archlinux?

I haven't done a comparison

Do packages across distros take up roughly same amount of space?

I don't see any point raising this if you're not going to post a few comparisons.

ananthp

Member

Registered: 2011-06-18

Posts: 8

Re: Package Sizes BIG with pacman/archlinux?

Ok. Here we go.

$ sudo aptitude install xmonad
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  ghc6{a} ghc6-doc{a} libbsd-dev{a} libffi-dev{a} libghc6-mtl-dev{a} libghc6-mtl-doc{a}
  libghc6-x11-dev{a} libghc6-x11-doc{a} libghc6-x11-xft-dev{a} libghc6-x11-xft-doc{a}
  libghc6-xmonad-contrib-dev{a} libghc6-xmonad-contrib-doc{a} libghc6-xmonad-dev{a}
  libghc6-xmonad-doc{a} xmonad
0 packages upgraded, 15 newly installed, 0 to remove and 7 not upgraded.
Need to get 72.8MB of archives. After unpacking 354MB will be used.

$ sudo pacman -S xmonad
Password:
resolving dependencies...
looking for inter-conflicts...

Targets (7): ghc-7.0.2-1  haskell-syb-0.3-1.2  haskell-x11-1.5.0.0-7.2
             haskell-transformers-0.2.2.0-1.2  haskell-mtl-2.0.1.0-1.1
             haskell-utf8-string-0.3.6-7.1  xmonad-0.9.2-1.2

Total Download Size:    56.66 MB
Total Installed Size:    734.23 MB

That's a huge difference, but, Ubuntu 10.10 installs older version of ghc.

$ sudo aptitude install ghc6
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  ghc6 libbsd-dev{a} libffi-dev{a}
0 packages upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 7 not upgraded.
Need to get 62.8MB of archives. After unpacking 280MB will be used.

$ sudo pacman -S ghc
resolving dependencies...
looking for inter-conflicts...

Targets (1): ghc-7.0.2-1

Total Download Size:    53.17 MB
Total Installed Size:   666.61 MB

So, it seems ghc 7 is considerably bigger than ghc 6. Probably it'll take much more space than 280 MB on a ubuntu machine too.

Next, I checked sizes of some of the applications I've installed in both O/S. Counted just the app's size, not of dependecies, with these commands

arch: $ pacman -Qi package-name
ubuntu: $ aptitude show package-name

               Installed Size
            arch        ubuntu 10.10    
            x86_64        32bit        

inkscape     0.48.1-3    0.48.0-1ubuntu1.2
            83172.00 K    60.5 M

ardour        2.8.11-3    2.8.11-1ubuntu1
            19020.00 K    15.2M

audacity    1.3.13-1    1.3.12-7
            15224.00 K    6,988k

denemo    0.9.0-1        0.8.10-1ubuntu1
            21704.00 K    5,001k
    
lilypond    2.12.13-7    2.12.3-7
            11832.00 K    4227 kB
                        (+lilypond-data    6910 kB?)

texlive-core 2010.22154-1    texlive-binaries (2009-7)- 17 M
            251365.00 K        texlive-common (2009-10) - 303 kB


mplayer    33690-1        Version: 2:1.0~rc4~try1.dsfg1-1ubuntu1
            13080.00 K    5,513k

smplayer    0.6.9-3        0.6.9-1
            7248.00 K    3,133k

vim            7.3.177-1    7.2.330-1ubuntu4
            2216.00 K    1,696k

vim-runtime    7.3.177-1    7.2.330-1ubuntu4
            25168.00 K    25.4M

I see most packages are of similar/comparable sizes. The difference could be due to version differences, or as Xabre pointed out, due to packaging style. lilypond 2.12.13-7 takes up 11 MB in arch. In ubuntu, the package lilypond is about 4 MB, but it depends on lilypond-data, which is another 7 MB (totaling 11 MB), however there's no such dependency in arch.

I guess there should be similar reasons behind mplayer (130 MB vs 5 MB) and latex/texlive - (250 MB vs 17 MB).

Last edited by ananthp (2011-06-23 19:15:52)

Inxsible

Forum Fellow

From: Chicago

Registered: 2008-06-09

Posts: 9,183

Re: Package Sizes BIG with pacman/archlinux?

A few things:

You might already have a few dependent packages already installed in Ubuntu which don't need to be installed again thereby giving a different size. Its been a long while since I used a Debian based distro, but the 7 packages not upgraded -- are they the dependencies of xmonad (package that you are trying to install) and are not upgraded since they are already installed? or are those 7 not related?

In your comparo you are comparing 64bit binaries with 32 bit binaries and most all differing versions. Totally different playing fields !!

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wonder

Developer

From: Bucharest, Romania

Registered: 2006-07-05

Posts: 5,941

Website

Re: Package Sizes BIG with pacman/archlinux?

I guess there should be similar reasons behind mplayer (130 MB vs 5 MB) and latex/texlive - (250 MB vs 17 MB).

mplayer 130MB? are you kidding me?

13MB installed, 5 MB download

Last edited by wonder (2011-06-23 18:50:55)

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Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.

ananthp

Member

Registered: 2011-06-18

Posts: 8

Re: Package Sizes BIG with pacman/archlinux?

oops!