I often hear folks in the Linux community discussing their preference for Arch (and Linux in general) because they can install only the packages they want or need - no bloat.

I’ve come across users with a couple of hundred packages installed (likely fresh installs), but I’ve also seen others with thousands.

Personally, I’m currently at 1.7k packages on my desktop and 1.3k on my laptop (both running EndeavourOS). There might be a few packages I could remove, but I don’t feel like my system is bloated.

I guess it’s subjective, but when do you consider a system to be bloated?

I’m asking as a relatively new Linux user - been daily driving for about 7/8 months

  • WandererB
    8·
    7 months ago

    Idk. I use Ubuntu (although the MATE flavour, not sure about the default version) and I don’t feel it’s bloated (there are preinstalled apps that I don’t use but I stilk don’t feel it’s bloated). One example that I consider bloated is stock Android on most phones where you have Facebook and Instagram preinstalled (two social media ffs), GDrive and OneDrive, and those useless vendor apps (Samsung Pay, Samsung Store or whatever that is). It’s just too much. Worse is they’re all privacy nightmares.