Linux Anti-Minimalism
Today I felt like installing neofetch on my VPS. For no good reason, really, but why not. If you don't know what it is, it is a tiny script that shows you some things about your computer, along with the logo of the distro, like this:
`-/osyhddddhyso/-` stack@comma
.+yddddddddddddddddddy+. ---------
:yddddddddddddddddddddddddy: OS: Xubuntu 24.04.3 LTS x86_64
-yddddddddddddddddddddhdddddddy- Host: HP Envy 795-0037c Desktop Rfrb
odddddddddddyshdddddddh`dddd+ydddo Kernel: 6.8.0-90-generic
`yddddddhshdd- ydddddd+`ddh.:dddddy` Uptime: 2 days, 5 hours, 20 mins
sddddddy /d. :dddddd-:dy`-ddddddds Packages: 3378 (dpkg), 12 (snap)
:ddddddds /+ .dddddd`yy`:ddddddddd: Shell: bash 5.2.21
sdddddddd` . .-:/+ssdyodddddddddds Resolution: 3440x1440
ddddddddy `:ohddddddddd DE: Xfce 4.18
dddddddd. +dddddddd WM: Xfwm4
sddddddy ydddddds WM Theme: Greybird-dark
:dddddd+ .oddddddd: Theme: Greybird-dark [GTK2/3]
sdddddo ./ydddddddds Icons: ubuntu-mono-dark [GTK2/3]
`yddddd. `:ohddddddddddy` Terminal: xfce4-terminal
oddddh/` `.:+shdddddddddddddo Terminal Font: Monospace 12
-ydddddhyssyhdddddddddddddddddy- CPU: Intel i7-8700 (12) @ 4.600GHz
:yddddddddddddddddddddddddy: GPU: Intel CoffeeLake-S GT2 [UHD Gra
.+yddddddddddddddddddy+. Memory: 9854MiB / 11818MiB
`-/osyhddddhyso/-`
It's just a comfort thing, really.
So when I tried to install it with apt, my eyes popped out of my head when the computer said it needed 147MBs of disk space. Literally,:
The following additional packages will be installed:
caca-utils chafa fontconfig fonts-droid-fallback fonts-noto-mono fonts-urw-base35 ghostscript
hicolor-icon-theme imagemagick imagemagick-6-common imagemagick-6.q16 jp2a libabsl20220623t64
libavahi-client3 libavahi-common-data libavahi-common3 libavif16 libcaca0 libcairo-gobject2 libcairo2
libchafa0t64 libcups2t64 libdatrie1 libdav1d7 libdjvulibre-text libdjvulibre21 libfftw3-double3 libfontenc1
libgav1-1 libgc1 libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0 libgdk-pixbuf2.0-bin libgdk-pixbuf2.0-common libgif7 libgraphite2-3
libgs-common libgs10 libgs10-common libharfbuzz0b libhwy1t64 libid3tag0 libidn12 libijs-0.35
libimath-3-1-29t64 libimlib2t64 libjbig2dec0 libjxl0.7 libjxr-tools libjxr0t64 liblcms2-2 liblqr-1-0
libltdl7 libmagickcore-6.q16-7-extra libmagickcore-6.q16-7t64 libmagickwand-6.q16-7t64 libnetpbm11t64
libopenexr-3-1-30 libopenjp2-7 libpango-1.0-0 libpangocairo-1.0-0 libpangoft2-1.0-0 libpaper-utils
libpaper1 libpixman-1-0 librav1e0 libraw23t64 librsvg2-2 librsvg2-common libsixel-bin libsixel1 libspectre1
libsvtav1enc1d1 libthai-data libthai0 libwebpdemux2 libwebpmux3 libwmflite-0.2-7 libx11-xcb1 libxcb-render0
libxcb-shm0 libxrender1 libyuv0 netpbm poppler-data toilet toilet-fonts w3m w3m-img xfonts-encodings
xfonts-utils
Suggested packages:
fonts-noto fonts-freefont-otf | fonts-freefont-ttf fonts-texgyre texlive-binaries imagemagick-6-doc
autotrace cups-bsd | lpr | lprng enscript ffmpeg gimp gnuplot grads graphviz hp2xx html2ps libwmf-bin
mplayer povray radiance sane-utils texlive-base-bin transfig libraw-bin xdg-utils cups-common libfftw3-bin
libfftw3-dev liblcms2-utils inkscape librsvg2-bin poppler-utils fonts-japanese-mincho
| fonts-ipafont-mincho fonts-japanese-gothic | fonts-ipafont-gothic fonts-arphic-ukai fonts-arphic-uming
fonts-nanum figlet brotli cmigemo compface dict dict-wn dictd mailcap w3m-el xsel
The following NEW packages will be installed:
caca-utils chafa fontconfig fonts-droid-fallback fonts-noto-mono fonts-urw-base35 ghostscript
hicolor-icon-theme imagemagick imagemagick-6-common imagemagick-6.q16 jp2a libabsl20220623t64
libavahi-client3 libavahi-common-data libavahi-common3 libavif16 libcaca0 libcairo-gobject2 libcairo2
libchafa0t64 libcups2t64 libdatrie1 libdav1d7 libdjvulibre-text libdjvulibre21 libfftw3-double3 libfontenc1
libgav1-1 libgc1 libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0 libgdk-pixbuf2.0-bin libgdk-pixbuf2.0-common libgif7 libgraphite2-3
libgs-common libgs10 libgs10-common libharfbuzz0b libhwy1t64 libid3tag0 libidn12 libijs-0.35
libimath-3-1-29t64 libimlib2t64 libjbig2dec0 libjxl0.7 libjxr-tools libjxr0t64 liblcms2-2 liblqr-1-0
libltdl7 libmagickcore-6.q16-7-extra libmagickcore-6.q16-7t64 libmagickwand-6.q16-7t64 libnetpbm11t64
libopenexr-3-1-30 libopenjp2-7 libpango-1.0-0 libpangocairo-1.0-0 libpangoft2-1.0-0 libpaper-utils
libpaper1 libpixman-1-0 librav1e0 libraw23t64 librsvg2-2 librsvg2-common libsixel-bin libsixel1 libspectre1
libsvtav1enc1d1 libthai-data libthai0 libwebpdemux2 libwebpmux3 libwmflite-0.2-7 libx11-xcb1 libxcb-render0
libxcb-shm0 libxrender1 libyuv0 neofetch netpbm poppler-data toilet toilet-fonts w3m w3m-img
xfonts-encodings xfonts-utils
0 upgraded, 91 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 43.7 MB of archives.
After this operation, 147 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] n
Abort.
Abort!
What happened to minimalism? And why is this bash script pulling in all these libraries?
Well, for no good reason. Just in case?
It works without them:
$ sudo apt install --no-install-recommends neofetch
The following NEW packages will be installed:
neofetch
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 83.7 kB of archives.
After this operation, 360 kB of additional disk space will be used.
And there it was -- the entire 147MB of crap was not necessary at all.
And now I have yet another thing to manually keep track of when installing things, especially on VPSs where disk and RAM are a constraint.
I've been watching Linux get more and more bloat every year. But it's one thing that things get bigger, and another to drag in hundreds of megabytes of 'dependencies' when they are completely unnecessary. I am very disappointed.
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