Why do I have so many applications in my system

Barbiefan1475

So I went to see the neofetch info and it says that I have around 1000 packages but I'm confused is the packages and application the same thing and did I install a virus since I did not install 1000 apps ( sorry if I'm look dumb just making sure that I know what I'm doing)

tomscharbach

Barbiefan1475 Depending on what DE you are using, that sounds about right.

My neofetch running stock Plasma with no additional apps or packages other than Edge and Zoom flatpaks:

Packages: 831 (eopkg), 6 (flatpak)

Barbiefan1475

tomscharbach interesting. But I'm kinda confused is package the same as application . and when I install something for example gnome de it installs other stuff but why does it do that?

WetGeek

tomscharbach Packages: 831 (eopkg), 6 (flatpak)

Just about the same here, on a system that's by no means new.

Maybe that's why Plasma is so lightweight? QT vs. GTK?

tomscharbach

Barbiefan1475 But I'm kinda confused is package the same as application .

No. Applications often have numerous packages (dependencies, tools) that are installed when an application installs, and both the Solus OS layer and the Budgie/Gnome/Mate/Plasma DE layer are composed of numerous packages independent of applications.
.

infinitymdm

Barbiefan1475 Packages are not the same as applications.

If you look through your app menu / launcher, you'll find that you have far fewer app icons there than the number of packages you have. Most of those packages make up the underlying infrastructure of Solus. They include all sorts of software interfaces and drivers. This includes things like software for making your computer's audio work, displaying things on the screen, sending messages between the different processes running on your computer, and a ton of other stuff.

Barbiefan1475

tomscharbach oh ok. Thxs for answering for my question . one last question does packages and dependencies exist in windows also ?

Barbiefan1475

infinitymdm thanks for the info . I really appreciate it .

tomscharbach

Barbiefan1475 one last question does packages and dependencies exist in windows also

The nomenclature is a bit more complicated, but basically yes.

Barbiefan1475

tomscharbach interesting

mw42815

as stated above packages and applications are not the same . a application such as firefox can have dozens of packages but when all the packages are run together you get the application. As far as Windows is concerned , packages in a way do exist because every file could be considered a package therefore we get Windows DLL and INI files which can be consindered "packages" . I hope this answers your questions.

Harvey

On Windows stuff like the kernel etc isn't really treated the same way as any other bit of software on the system and will not appear as an entry in add / remove programs. On Linux every single bit of the system is a just another package so numbers may appear large in comparison.

Most software you install on Windows is statically linked compared to Linux where most things are dynamically linked. That is to say on Windows its more common if application abc needs library xyz as a dependency it ships its own internal version, which only it can access compared to Linux where it is much more common to ship a library such as xyz as a single system library that anything that needs it can access.

Windows absolutely still has dependencies. Its just often transparent to the user because of how it handles it. You might require a specific version of directx, c++ runtime, jre etc. You can see some of this on steam when you launch a game for the first time and it prepares your system.

If you have a budgie/gnome/mate install it uses gtk libraries for its GUI compared to Plasma which uses qt. So if you install a qt application on a gtk desktop that might require many more dependencies that are not installed on your system by default.

People often think qt is bloated because of this and the fact there are many more qt libraries. The truth is qt does not ship everything as part of a core qt package and it handles a lot more stuff which allows developers to just use a library instead of coding the functionality themselves and it separates its capabilities it into many parts.

Then you have Linux distributions who can split packages into multiple sub-packages. Example kid3 on Solus separates the cli tool from the gui application so if you don't want the gui tool you do not need to install it. Every Linux distribution will make different decisions on when to split packages. Solus doesn't do this as often as other Linux distros which makes other distros appear to have 10s of thousands more packages when its actually much much closer in number.

Which is a lot of words to say this is never a statistic you should pay much attention to. For the record I have 1448 packages installed.

WetGeek

WetGeek Maybe that's why Plasma is so lightweight? QT vs. GTK?

And partly it's so lightweight because it's Salsa. Out of curiosity, I checked on Neptune Plasma. this is from a VM with a very new installation, and the only significant addition is Vivaldi.

tomscharbach

WetGeek Just about the same here, on a system that's by no means new.

Maybe that's why Plasma is so lightweight? QT vs. GTK?

Doubt it. At least it doesn't show up in the raw numbers.

My Plasma build has (as noted above) has 831 (eopkg), 6 (flatpak). Yours has 874 (eopkg), 6 (flatpak). My Budgie build (identically set up to my Plasma build -- stock plus Edge) has 731 (eopkg), 7 (flatpak). Of my two builds, Plasma is about a month old, Budgie 3+ years old. QT vs. GTK is probably not a factor with respect to package size.

I suspect that the reason my Plasma build has fewer packages than yours is that I remove Firefox and Thunderbird (lowering the number of packages), and you add VirtualBox (increasing the number of packages). Vivaldi and Edge should just about even out. In any event, the package difference isn't much.

elfprince

Solus Budgie: Packages: 1399 (eopkg), 8 (flatpak)

tomscharbach

WetGeek I checked on Neptune Plasma. this is from a VM with a very new installation, and the only significant addition is Vivaldi.

2718 packages? Neptune must package three kitchen sinks and the family dog to get a number that high.

WetGeek

tomscharbach Doubt it. At least it doesn't show up in the raw numbers.

This matter is certainly far more complex than we're pretending it is. And we're probably not remembering everything that might make a difference. It's probably pretty useless to draw any conclusions based on the number of packages on a system, unless that difference is really huge.

The closest thing I have that I can consider a fair comparison of one DE to another is the Virtual Media Manager that's part of VirtualBox. I create every VM with the same 32GB dynamic virtual hard drive. And I usually install the same software on them. The four Solus VMs are essentially vanilla configurations plus Vivaldi. The non-Solus VMs typically are about the same, as I set them up the same way to try them as daily-drivers for a day or two.

My Solus Budgie VM uses almost exactly 5GB more of its virtual disk drive than does my Solus Plasma VM. And my Manjaro Budgie VM uses almost exactly 5GB more of its virtual disk drive than my Manjaro Plasma VM does. Those are probably more significant numbers than the number of packages on each system, but it's still open to considerable speculation.

tomscharbach

WetGeek This matter is certainly far more complex than we're pretending it is. And we're probably not remembering everything that might make a difference. It's probably pretty useless to draw any conclusions based on the number of packages on a system, unless that difference is really huge. ... My Solus Budgie VM uses almost exactly 5GB more of its virtual disk drive than does my Solus Plasma VM. And my Manjaro Budgie VM uses almost exactly 5GB more of its virtual disk drive than my Manjaro Plasma VM does. Those are probably more significant numbers than the number of packages on each system, but it's still open to considerable speculation.

I think that you are right. "Lightweight" versus "Middleweight" versus "Heavyweight" is a case where size doesn't matter.

When it comes to describing this distro or that distro as "lightweight" relative to other distros, the standard measure of whether or not a distro is "lightweight" is resource use. As commonly used, the term "lightweight" is applied to distros that are specifically designed for use on low-spec computers, typically older computers (e.g. single-core or dual-core low-end processor, such as a Celeron, Pentium or AMD A9-9220, 1-2GB of RAM, and 20-30GB HHD/SSD), and run well on computers with those specifications (see "Top 10 Best Lightweight Linux Distros" for an example).

By the current standard, neither Solus Budgie nor Solus Plasma would be considered "lightweight".

We've discussed this before in another thread, but the size of a distro is not relevant. Neither is the number of packages. What is relevant is what resources a distro uses in order to run, how the distro uses resources, and how the distro handles resource allocation. The only case where "size matters" is a case where the computer has a very small HHD/SSD, and almost every computer built in the last decade has at least 32GB.

kyrios

Counting the packages has no meaning, especially between distros.

WetGeek

tomscharbach the standard measure of whether or not a distro is "lightweight" is resource use

Indeed, that's really what it boils down to. And I can't honestly think of any of the Solus editions as actually being heavyweight.

It's only curiosity that makes me wonder why a distro with one DE is 5GB larger than the same distro with another DE. It would seem that the overall difference can only be attributed to the DEs.

Remember, disk space is a resource, too.

tomscharbach

WetGeek I can't honestly think of any of the Solus editions as actually being heavyweight.

Designation of lightweight/middleweight/heavyweight is a mix of subjective and objective. I like this explanation:

"Lightweight distros" are specially designed for resource-constrained hardware, allowing the user can have a responsive and lag-free computing experience on low-spec hardware in terms of processing power, disk space, and RAM.

“Heavyweight distros” are usually at the other end of the spectrum, with the latest and greatest features, built keeping the best computing experience in mind, and generally requiring a computer with a 4-core or better processor, 8 GB of RAM and 30 GB of disk space to run the distro smoothly.

"Middleweight distros" fall somewhere in the middle.

Solus Budgie/Gnome/Plasma fall in the "Middleweight" class to my mind. I don't think that there is a dime's worth of difference between them in practical terms.

WetGeek Remember, disk space is a resource, too.

Indeed. I think that the absolute minimum HHD/SSD size for any Linux distro (except the most lightweight) is 64 GB, taking in consideration the fact that most users add apps and store data. Solus recommends a minimum of 10GB disk space, but that, to my mind, is nonsensical.

WetGeek

WetGeek Remember, disk space is a resource, too.

Okay, my curiosity got to be too much for me. I created a VM that's so constrained, I couldn't even install Solus on it.

I tried, but I didn't get very far with 8GB of disk, which is VirtualBox's suggested minimum for a generic Linux distro.

I'll start again, and this time enlarge the vDisk to Solus' suggested minimum of 10GB.
...

Just for the record, Solus really can run on a very minimal machine. My next try will probably be with a Fedora derivative, since those also seemed to be pretty light when I tested them. Here's what my constrained-test-vm is like, with Solus Plasma installed and 632 upgrades applied:

To keep the comparisons legitimate, I'm going to use this same VM with different distros, and just change the .ISO that I install on it.