Common questions we see in the OpenSUSE community are "which distro is the least bloated", "how can I remove bloat", "package X is bloat" etc.
For the longest time this has confused me - Linux while sometimes slow, isn't "bloated". So where are all these questions coming from?
What is Bloat?
It was only recently while watching an older Gamers Nexus video on a prebuilt Dell PC that I realised where this is from - So many OEM's install 3rd party software into their images that the out of box (OOB) experience is awful.
Some genuine examples of bloat are:
- McAfee anti-virus
- That anoying ASUS thing that tries to install from your motherboard
- Pre-installed OEM helper software on Windows
- This blog post
- Copilot
- Any software a sales person tries to upsell you on
- The list continues forever ...
This leads people to services.msc and you disable random stuff you don't recognise because "I dunno
what it does, must be bloat". As our GN video shows, sometimes those random services can take up 30%
of a systems resources just idling which really has a negative impact on user experience.
To define bloat in one, clear line.
Bloat is software installed for corporate gain, which has no benefit to the user/system and actively consumes significant RAM, CPU and/or GPU resources.
So what about Linux?
This proliferation of bloat in Windows has led to this idea that when you install a system, it always comes with some "hidden part" that must be taking up resources.
When you take this to Linux it doesn't really apply though. Linux distros aren't subject to the same financial kickbacks/incentives so random 3rd party software isn't just installed by default. Most of what's installed by default has a purpose on your system to make it more usable in some manner.
Taken further we see people try to even remove as much software as possible (even critical and important software like NTP clients) just to save disk space which isn't really a resource that's at a premium these days.
What should you do?
Don't stress about "bloat" in Linux - it simply isn't there like it is in Windows. There certainly are parts of a Linux distro that can negatively impact performance, but that is not the same as "bloat" (looking at you PackageKit).
And remember that software that isn't running and is just on disk, isn't consuming any resources! Those few MB you may save trying to remove it, is fractions of a percentage of your overall disk capacity. In the grand scheme of things it's nothing. It's not worth the risk of breaking your system (since Linux famously has no adequate safeties or guardrails to stop you destroying your machine).