this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2025
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    Sayori meme representing Linux users. Sayori is disgusted by text reading "receiving pre-installed bloatware" and instead approves "accumulating bloatware over time". Bloatware refers to unused packages.

    Edit: You are so kind to give me advice on how to remove bloatware, but I don't need it :D

    all 49 comments
    sorted by: hot top controversial new old
    [–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

    NixOS: Always installing exactly the same bloatware.

    [–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

    This thread is hilarious. Do what you want, but to rm -rf (assume /) to get rid of unwanted packages is the most Windows thing.

    No matter your package manager, I am sure there is a way to get a list of explicitly installed packages and then going through it and uninstalling with the package manager automatically removing it’s dependencies seems like a way faster method.

    [–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

    this is why i moved from Arch to NixOS. now i know what system packages are installed and can even leave comments in the config to remind myself what the heck cyme does, for instance

    [–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    This is a certified hood Klassiker. I keep all my important files on external disks, so I can reinstall easily. I tried other distros that "fix" this issue, but I'll never leave my true love Arch again (dont tell my wife, I don't want to sleep on the couch again).

    [–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

    Separate / from /home into separate partitions. When you reinstall, set to overwrite /, but leave /home intact or set it to be /home for the new install without formatting. It will reinstall your distro but keep your data.

    [–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

    The main reason I don't do this is that I don't want to keep any executables / potentially malicious, or files prone to exploitation around. So I like to fully format my main SSD. Yeah, it's a bit paranoid, but I still prefer it. Thanks for the tip, tho. I think it's helpful for alot of people.

    [–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

    You do you, of course. But, I think that combining the approach of immutable distros to either case would be a great way to add some security. Even if nothing is ever 100% safe, this would be very robust. Or, even without an immutable distro you can do Qubes or just any sandboxing (e.g. bubblewrap) to open documents and files.

    In any case, being paranoid certainly is an elegant sport. Perhaps even more than golfing (:

    [–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

    Too late, she saw distro on your collar.

    [–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (3 children)
    [–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

    That doesn't stop you from accumulating flatpaks and such

    [–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (5 children)

    I actually use NixOS, but my configuration also accumulates packages I will no longer use. Even worse, these packages will be reinstalled wherever I use that config!

    [–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

    Install comma, and run commands without installing

    [–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

    Use nix run/nix shell and only add to the config when you've used that a lot for the same command.

    Then clean up the config....someday.

    [–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

    You can try deleting old profiles and then garbage-collect the installation, only the last generation will remain

    [–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

    You can try deleting old profiles and then garbage-collect the installation, only the last generation will remain and you'd get your space back.

    [–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

    You can get rid of them very easily 😁 You could also have a base config and an extended config

    [–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

    NixOS user here. This doesn't come out of the box, but I append a comma before the command I want to run without installing, I can run the command without installing.

    Yes it's technically downloaded (if not cached there already) in the nix store, but this is (optionally automatically) cleaned up regularly, for store items that doesn't have a generation (profile, think version of your configuration) that depends on it.

    Out the box, you can run a command that opens a shell up with the packages you specify, but comma uses a database to know the executeable names for packages (you get to pick if multiple matches), similar to the command not found function in other distros.

    Sorry for hijacking your comment, just wanted to say something cool about a cool distro, which isn't suitable for everyone, but I hope that can improve in the future because nixos is niceos

    [–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    I am fine with installing apps I use or want to try. I'm also okay with forgetting them and wasting the space honestly. All of that probably would take me ten years of "bloat" to match windows out of the box so yeah that's not bloat, that's just making software decisions. This post is really criticizing people for installing software? Wtf

    [–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

    Yes, you should not install packages and this incident will be reported.

    [–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

    as usual, nix fixed this (kinda)

    [–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    if i package i want to install has more than five dependencies, i don't install it; who can keep track of all that :3

    [–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

    That's what package managers are for πŸ€·β€β™‚οΈ

    [–] [email protected] 21 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

    This doesn't make sense to me.
    If you install features over time, it's because you want to use them, if you want to use them, it's not bloat.
    If it's to try it, and it's not for you, why not just remove the package again?

    I can't say for others, but my system definitely does not get bloated over time.
    On the contrary, I remove preinstalled features I don't use, when I get tired of seeing them updating.

    [–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

    I check out apps from flathub periodically and then subsequently completely forget about them. That may or may not count as bloat depending on how you define it

    [–] [email protected] 75 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

    Bold of you to assume people have perfect knowledge of what they installed and what they use and how much.

    [–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

    Time for me to be that person

    Well, with nixos you can just use your config and set up almost everything declaratively and as long as you keep it tidy, have a good overview of your system:)

    [–] [email protected] 53 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    I just copy and paste things into the terminal until whatever I wanted is installed and running.

    [–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

    I spent 3hrs yesterday troubleshooting an issue that ultimately came from forgetting I had installed firewalld in addition to ufw, had both enabled, and obviously their rule lists were seperate.

    I almost certainly got there by doing a tutorial "brain off"

    [–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago

    This is the way

    [–] [email protected] 28 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    Same. Also if I can't get it to work I rarely put in the effort to uninstall all the bits I've added.

    [–] [email protected] 12 points 2 days ago

    I feel targeted

    [–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    Are you saying you don't know when you install additional packages?
    How does that work?

    [–] [email protected] 26 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    Install, try out, forget about it.

    [–] [email protected] -4 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    Being mindless about anything has pretty similar results, I don't see the point of this?
    Forget you have a car parked in your garage and it will get dirty over time.
    Maybe not the best analogy, but if you don't give a shit, things tend to fall apart.

    [–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

    Your garage is now very big and you can try out thousands of cars for free.

    [–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    Gonna raise the notion that a good, usable piece of software would not require much, if any level of awareness on this front, since most users aren't willing or able to have that awareness in the first place.

    The way this should work is you click on things you want in a package manager and then those are present and available transparently whether you use them or not. That goes for all OSs.

    Hell, even Android's semi-automatic hybernating of unused apps is a step too close to my face, as far as I'm concerned.

    [–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    Isn't that how it is, hence the meme that people accumulate bloteware* over time because they keep installing and not using but not going back and uninstalling,

    At least for me I'd open up the package manager and see all these new and recommended software and think oh cool I'll get into ASCII art if I install this, and of course never actually run it, last time I had like three metronomes

    [–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

    For me it got particularly bad back when I was running Manjaro and the GUI package manager showed you multiple package types for the same software all the time. Three metronomes is bad, but three differently packaged versions of Steam is worse and potentially unrecoverable.

    [–] [email protected] 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    Forget you have a car parked in your garage and it will get dirty over time.

    Exactly and then from time to time your clear out and clean the garage. Hence the original post.

    [–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    OK, except the post indicate building a new garage to get rid of the unused car.
    Kind of overkill IMO.

    [–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

    What? No.
    Going with the garage analogy, it's like buying a dirty car vs getting a new one and it getting dirty over time

    [–] [email protected] 83 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    Maybe the real bloatware is the friends we made along the way

    [–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)
    [–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

    Shred friends

    [–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

    They are characteristically similar some times...