this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Of the future? They're a duplicate of what Apple was doing with software as far back as the mid 90s.
Every ounce of performance we squeeze out of our hardware is replaced with pounds of bloat like this.
It's fine for a utility or something you'll hardly ever need to use, but running every day software like this is a complete waste.
There's no bloat, nix are system packages
If there's no bloat why is there a garbage collector?
The garbage collector removes all packages/derivations that are not (transitively) used any more. So it is similar to apt-get autoremove. I don't think that classifies as bloat. You could just regularly run the garbage collector.
Rollback, reproducibility, safety.
Would you call btrfs snapshots or some other backup system bloat?
It actually serves an important purpose for the user. Meanwhile apt is leaving around random libraries and man pages you need to autoremove.
Having every application load their own version of a library into memory is bloat.
They don't, they share the same library version if they were built against it.
Lots of software won't even work if the library version is different, so it's a benefit, not a downside
Right. That's why you build the software against a common library version.
In which case it's shared in NixOS and there's no bloat
What do you mean? Apple doesn't have a package manager at all. Brew is a fucking mess that takes ages to do anything.
The applications have binaries and libraries bundled for multiple arches. I wasn't speaking to the package manager.