What is so bloated about GNOME?

[-]

General-Abalone-1962@reddit

The amount of ram required to run it.

[-]

flemtone@reddit

Gnome itself isnt bloated, but looking at how Ubuntu has packaged it mostly with snaps, I think that causes a lot of issues with people.

[-]

Nah, GNOME is fine. So is KDE. People who are vocal about negatives are either having a very specific problem with their setups, or just yelling about their past experiences. Neither of which reflect general consensus.

[-]

JSinisin@reddit

The issue with this, is what I call "Microsoft logic".

Yes. In a vaccuum you're right. But there's two seperate issues here.

The term "bloat".

I run a Window Manager instead of a Desktop Environment. This exact situation occurred to me maybe 5 or 6 days ago. I forget which package it was, but I went to install some package (I think it was for a mouse cursor theme.) and the gnome variant said it had 251 other non-negotiable dependencies. The KDE variant had like 110 non negotiable dependencies.

I found a different option that had 15 dependencies.

"General consensus" is not always the best guide. People, and yes developers are people lol, will generally take the path of least resistance. Give people an inch and they will Invariably take a mile. Yes, memory is in excess now, but that does not mean "we" the end user should not care about how things are developed or packaged.

In no world should a Calculator, a text editor and a photo viewer app be non-negotiable dependencies of each other. These are singular, modular applications. But in some DEs, they are dependents. That, is the problem. When you allow that logic of "I say these apps are dependent upon each other no matter what you say" you are allowing the shift towards Microsoft levels of bloat.

A dependent package should "break" the usage of an app if it is removed. Not disrupt the overall flow and aesthetic of an entire desktop environment.

Yes, there are benefits to DEs. Ease of onboarding, etc. However, if "we" don't at least push back against it. The people will inevitably take the path of least resistance and continue bundling things.

The new movement to stop people from theming their apps, a gnome-centric issue, is yet another example of this logic.

[-]

rockymega@reddit

Theming stuff doesn't work on KDE either. There always are and have been knick knacks and shenanigans with theming where it doesn't work. I agree with you that you shouldn't go overboard on dependencies, and not ban dependencies either, but with theming I see legitimate objections from the developers' perspective. They work on applications for free, they don't charge us. Programming is hard work. Thus, I completely understand trying to make design work simpler and faster by using CSS. I mean, they would rather work on their application logic and bugs related to that than chiseling a design from their programming language. And on top of that, theming creates bugs and wastes developers time even with official distro themes like Ubuntus causing you to have to debug you app on every distro, which is a much bigger problem than people knowing what they sign up for and theming stuff. Theme "stores" which look official, like on KDE, can also break apps, and that hassle really adds on top to the hard work programming an app for free while juggling that with your job and family. In conclusion: I am of the opinion that open source developers that work for free less headache is pretty important for a thriving app selection. They are free people, and quite reasonable. I'm not going to harass them like an entitled prick to do free work my way. That just makes them miserable and quit. No dev = no app for me. If it's that bad, it's open source, and I can fork. Unless dev work is super hard after all?

[-]

Clydosphere@reddit

That's actually mostly my own take. Sometimes I'm inclined to make polite suggestions, but I'm not upset if they aren't adopted.

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Clydosphere@reddit

Just a friendly request, could you please structure your post with paragraphs like the poster above you did?

I'm sorry, but I won't read your post like this, because such walls of text are just too arduous for me.

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rockymega@reddit

Oops.

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Clydosphere@reddit

Thanks very much for your kind reply and the edit. I'll read your post right away! 🤓

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StrippedFlesh@reddit

I completely agree with you. Some packages have an astounding amount of dependencies.

I have sometimes installed a package without looking too closely, and afterwards wondered why my hard drive is full, only to realise that it was all the dependencies that I failed to spot.

[-]

AcceptableHamster149@reddit

This. Gnome's not even in the top 10 for memory usage on my laptop. I wouldn't want to run it on an ancient system with less than 1GB of RAM (not because it won't run, but because a browser can take 800+MB these days), but anything even remotely modern you're not going to run into memory issues with Gnome, or KDE for that matter.

It's true that it's possible to build a desktop that uses a tiny fraction of the memory that these full desktop environments use but on systems with lots of memory it's just a number on paper. I'm sitting here with 21GB of free RAM on my laptop, so who cares if my DE uses 200mb more memory than something that's half as usable?

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PMMePicsOfDogs141@reddit

I'd actually love to see a DE for Linux that eats as much ram as Windows. I can't think of one you couldn't run on 4gb.

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jekpopulous2@reddit

I remember a few years back I tested a handful of DE’s to see which was the lightest (It was LXQt). Mate was a close second followed by KDE, XFCE, Cinnamon and then Gnome was the heaviest. That said… we’re only talking about a 450MB difference between LXQT and Gnome. On any modern hardware 450MB is completely negligible so unless you’re using something like a Raspberry Pi it doesn’t matter at all. Just use whatever DE you like.

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mkwlink@reddit

Less RAM usage ≠ lightness

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core-x-bit@reddit

Explain what does then because what other metric would you use? Cpu usage? Fps?

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rockymega@reddit

All of it. Windows 95 takes less memory and processing power than KDE. Windows NT 4.0 is very light too, albeit heavier than Windows 95. I want to see that performance soar and get to know the potential of the supercomputers we use these days.

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BrodatyBear@reddit

Honestly, CPU usage could be a better metric. With RAM I doubt the extra 200, 350, 500 MB will do much difference, but stealing from CPU can really make performance much, much worse...

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talideon@reddit

True, but LXQt is pretty lightweight and snappy.

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mkwlink@reddit

And KDE isn't, XFCE is way lighter than KDE.

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I_Arman@reddit

I have to laugh because I imagine someone ranting about Gnome using so many resources, then immediately opening Firefox with 87 saved tabs.

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picastchio@reddit

To be honest, Firefox doesn't load any saved tabs when you just open it.

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Linosia97@reddit

To be honest, you CAN setup it, so it will load the same tabs you closed on exit…

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Jean_Luc_Lesmouches@reddit

Well yeah, without gnome they could open 88 tabs.

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suchtie@reddit

87? Rookie numbers.

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gurgelblaster@reddit

I am in this reply and I do not like it

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non-existing-person@reddit

Ram is just a tiny part when it comes lightness. DE can use 4GB of ram and be blazing fast, and other DE can use barely 10MB but be slow AF. Design matters a lot when it comes to performance as well. How much code is being executed every second or on action. RAM usage mattered like 10 years ago. Now code quality matters much more.

Say you have file explorer that wants to do some operations on dir. One program will readdir() everytime it wants to do anything. While another one will cache results and probe a single file that it needs to do something with. One will probable take less RAM, but will be slower.

So RAM is NOT a measure of performance nor lightness. The feeling and responsiveness is.

[-]

KnowZeroX@reddit

It's tricky, if you are on a modern computer than yes. But for those with older computers with say 4gb ram, if your DE is using 4gb ram itself, then the rest is swapping which will make it less responsive even more if you have and HDD instead of SSD or better nvme.

The whole point of a light DE (in terms of ram) is to leave more stuff in ram for better performance. Lightness is the method, performance is the end result. Lower ram is simply one method of lightness but of course not the only method.

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Existing-Tough-6517@reddit

Gnome would be unusable at less than 4G

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lebean@reddit

I mean, that's just obviously 100% false from a GNOME hater. My laptop has been up for days, GNOME is nowhere near the top memory consumer. Chrome, VSCode, Firefox, even Dropbox are higher.

Now, if you said Chrome/Firefox/etc. are unusable on a 2GB system, you'd be getting somewhere. That's not GNOME's fault. A 2GB system is, frankly, e-waste and nobody should expect to run any modern DE on it with modern apps. KDE would be awful on a 2GB system. XFCE would suck on a 2GB system as soon as you opened a browser, and so on.

Basically, you proved the point of a poster above you who said there's no real difference, there are just haters talking from ancient experience that is no longer real or relevant.

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Existing-Tough-6517@reddit

One must consider the totality of the circumstances. For most such systems RAM is going to be 1 2 or 4G the next step down from 4 is 2. The user needs a browser they mostly neither need vscode nor a particular desktop. With 2G there with gnome just isn't going to be enough left over for useful computer usage.

Very little file cache constant swapping stuttering and freezing. Oom killer killing apps when swap is exhausted and the attendant problems from that.

On modern systems saving 400MB running a light environment means little in this case it would be night and day. I Literally know I had an old system I got from a thrift store for fun.

Look at you babbling about fault, failing basic analysis, and getting insulting because you can't talk like an adult

[-]

maximus459@reddit

I just do not like the Gnome design and workflow, I've tried to, but just can't. But that's my choice.

I have found it to take up more ram and CPU then KDE even at idle.

[-]

hazyPixels@reddit

I don't like it either, but I respect that it's a subjective matter and I respect those that do like it.

I prefer KDE.

As far as using excessive resources, there are more lightweight DEs out there that work well on resource constrained systems.

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johncate73@reddit

This. It uses more RAM but I have plenty of that, so it doesn't concern me.

I just don't use GNOME because I don't like its workflow.

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rhapdog@reddit

I agree. Workflow is what is important. For me, with all the GNOME extensions, I am able to get the workflow exactly like I want it. I can't quite get what I want to do on KDE. That's fine. My father wants KDE and would not be able to work with GNOME. That's fine, too. Different people have different ways of doing things, and each person should use the tool that suits them best.

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xuedi@reddit

Often people don't understand how Linux is using ram, if Linux keeps some chunks and slaps loaded specially after file operations it's not really using it, it just not needed to free it yet, so it does not... Also most ram usage is not the DE

[-]

MrTomiCZ@reddit

Well I do use gnome and it freezes a lot but that can be because of iGPU (16GB RAM, i5 CPU)

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FryBoyter@reddit

I wonder how much actually bloatware does GNOME have and why people say KDE Plasma is much less bloated?

There can be no objective answer to this question. What one user considers as bloat may be an important feature for another user.

[-]

khsh01@reddit

I think op misunderstood a meme post. Gnomes actual problem is how opinionated it is. Its creators make decisions for the user and don't give you any alternatives. For the people who are okay with that they get a very polished de that doesn't break easy because the devs can focus their efforts on a smaller subset of tasks.

KDE on the other hand has no opinions and is designed to be as flexible and customizable as possible. Which is great for people like me but it comes with a lot of jank that you won't see elsewhere.

[-]

requion@reddit

I don't see the issue with that. The users flexibility is to use whatever DE or WM they please.

I like Gnome for the OOTB experience and i am using it on a gaming PC without any noticeable impact on performance.

I can't say the same about KDE. Its performance was always way worse for me, the UX was janky and if i want to "hack" my desktop, i'd opt for a tiling window manager in the first place.

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nelmaloc@reddit

I don't see the issue with that.

The issue is that it's the default on most distros, and it's only the default because GNOME 2 was the default. If they had forked GNOME 2, instead of calling it GNOME 3, nobody would care.

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rockymega@reddit

I hate tiling WMs. I prefer floating ones a lot.

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the_j_tizzle@reddit

I like Gnome for the OOTB experience and i am using it on a gaming PC without any noticeable impact on performance.

This, all day. The OOTB experience is why I use GNOME. I add an extension for changing wallpaper and a couple informational extensions, but I otherwise use stock GNOME. I have nearly every other app's settings synced to my Nextcloud server (I use mostly vim, mutt, msmtp, khal, texlive, etc.) so that installing on a new box is straightforward. Because GNOME's OOTB experience is so good, I just install it and add the three extensions. Boom. Identical working environment on my work workstation, my home workstation, my laptop. etc.

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khsh01@reddit

This is the middle ground for people who don't want a tiling wm. They just want a desktop thats customizable.

I've personally never had issues with gnome. I just don't like it.

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blackcain@reddit

KDE very much has opinions - https://develop.kde.org/hig/

They have a HIG just like GNOME does. They also encourage simple yet powerful.

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mrlinkwii@reddit

KDE very much has opinions - https://develop.kde.org/hig/

KDE has opinions that arent of the detriment to the user*

and arent blocking usefull stuff

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blackcain@reddit

You think "Ability to set scroll speed in system settings" is a basic feature that GNOME should spend cycles on it versus say HD? How many people do you think we have developing GNOME? It's not infinite. GNOME depends on volunteers to implement these things, but also of sufficient code quality.

This wouldn't be a priority when we have so many other critical bugs to fix and features that people are asking for.

[-]

DonutsMcKenzie@reddit

Gnome being "opinionated" cuts both ways.

Personally, I like that they have a strong vision for what they want to make and aren't just copying what already exists.

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OCPetrus@reddit

Gnomes actual problem is how opinionated it is.

I can't help but wonder if apples and oranges are being mixed here.

It is true that gtk is extremely opinionated. Developers who come with an opinion on how they want to implement something are going to have a bad time. But if you do things the gtk-4 way, it's pretty nice in my opinion. You get more than you bargained for, everything dynamically resizing, solving startup and multiple instances is a breeze etc.

However, gnome is hardly opinionated. I use i3wm and gnome software works very well even though they're operating in an environment they weren't designed for. If gnome software was heavilty integrated, this wouldn't work.

If there's one thing that's a mess currently in the gnome ecosystem it's libadwaita. It's a pseudostandard and if you want to switch away from it, you'll encounter bugs no-one else has. In theory the whole look and feel is completely customizable,

[-]

lcnielsen@reddit

And as far as memory usage is concerned, if there are no problems, it doesn't matter whether 10, 20, 50, or 80 percent of the RAM is being used. What else is RAM good for if not to be used?

I don't understand this attitude. There are many contexts in which desktops can run, for example many-user remote desktops in HPC environments. In this context being able to keep RAM usage per user down is paramount. That becomes hard if developers take a "what does RAM matter" attitude.

In practice this means xfce4 is king, but if GNOME gave greater consideration to such use cases (not limited to RAM usage) it would certainly be a good option.

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ABotelho23@reddit

The point is that RAM can be freed on demand in most cases, while CPU cannot.

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anotheruser323@reddit

This is completely the other way around. And makes little sense either way.

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lcnielsen@reddit

Yeah, CPU time-sharing is kind of a cornerstore of computing...

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anotheruser323@reddit

Yea, the kernel can take cpu time but it can't take memory (other then mmap-ed files). Makes no sense

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lcnielsen@reddit

Are you talking about caching or something else? Because I don't think using cache is the same as occupying RAM.

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Material-Nose6561@reddit

My understanding is caching is done in RAM and then released when the RAM is needed. This is good use of RAM.

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lcnielsen@reddit

Yes but when people say something uses a lot of RAM they are typically not referring to caching. Those are easily distinguished.

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Material-Nose6561@reddit

I find in may cases they are referring to caching. Different DE's report memory usage differently. Some include the cache, some do not. This can give the illusion that one DE is more memory hungry than another when that's not the case at all.

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lcnielsen@reddit

Sorry, what do you mean with "report memory usage differently"? That there's some kernel-level difference in how they operate w.r.t memory allocation?

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sine-wave@reddit

You have to actually look at what is using the memory. Linux uses a lot of free memory for caching. If a user actually needs the memory, it will release it to the user’s application.

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SEI_JAKU@reddit

I can't believe some of the worst advice in all of history is getting upvoted like this. The worst thing you can do with any task in the entire world is to waste resources simply because you have them.

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tose123@reddit

"What else is RAM good for if not to be used?" Sure, RAM is there to be used, but wasting it on unnecessary abstractions, bloated libraries, and inefficient design is not the same as using it well. Just because you happen to have 16GB or 32GB of RAM doesn’t mean a calculator app needs to eat 500MB because someone decided to wrap GTK around an Electron core with half a browser bundled in.

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Ok-Winner-6589@reddit

if there are no problems, it doesn't matter whether 10, 20, 50, or 80 percent of the RAM is being used.

I agree with anything else, but this? Come on, really?

Thats the reason why light-weight distros were created, making things heavier when it's not necesary is the reason why people need to constantly change their hardware because you can't do the same things you used to, as now the same software uses 3 times more CPU and 5 times more RAM. Using more than needed is an issue.

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Chuck_Awesomest@reddit

I see this argument thrown a lot and it does not make sense to me, your CPU is also at around 2-5% usage at idle and that is not a reason for you to make it use 80% with badly written software.

What I am trying to say is that we should be conscious of resources even though we could use more.

[-]

algaefied_creek@reddit

Having my desktop flying and zooming in and out when I press the windows/super key and tap it a few times to get different views and fling my trackpad so the windows fly all over?

ADHD brain says YAS please Ryzen laptop with 96GB RAM FOR THE ZOOMIESSSS TO FOCUS

[-]

Safe-Average-1696@reddit

On a low end machine, yes, you'll see a difference between Gnome and XFCE and even between Gnome and KDE, Gnome will be slower and sluggish.

On a decent machine, you'll not.

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FormerSlacker@reddit

Seriously. I got a older Ironlake i7 Thinkpad where: Windows runs like butter, KDE runs like butter, Mate runs like butter while Gnome is a laggy stuttery mess.

[-]

lebean@reddit

Sometime try booting a live GNOME iso for whatever distro but set i915.enable_psr=0 on the kernel commandline via the grub menu. I bet you get a buttery smooth experience then.

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lebean@reddit

The gaslighting on this sub is just next level.

From you, yes. There are loads of people running on hardware just as old or older with no issues. To run on trash hardware, sometimes tweaks need to be made.

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rockymega@reddit

Ironlake is new hardware. Something is completely wrong with his configuration. Poor guy, maybe some program messed with it upon installation.

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kali_tragus@reddit

Yeah, I think the 'bloat' talk stems from the time when memory was expensive and a low memory footprint was the (expected) norm for most things Linux.

For work I still prefer xfce4. It does everything I need and is quite efficient at it.

[-]

blackcain@reddit

The common wisdom today is that idle ram is wasted resources. So, an app / system will ask for as much memory as they can and then give it up when some other app asks for it.

The whole 'bloat' thing is a leftover from a bygone era.

[-]

kali_tragus@reddit

Well, there's still 'feature bloat'. The "do one thing and do it well" philosophy isn't quite the star of the show any more. I realise that not all tasks can be solved in a simple way, but at some point there will be too many Swiss army knives.

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blackcain@reddit

"feature bloat" is a thing, sure. But that happens if you add too many features (because users ask for them) and parts of the user base gets upset that something is slow because of features that were implemented that they don't use. They call that feature bloat.

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flarkis@reddit

Even low end doesn't mean what it used to. When I first started tinkering with linux I needed to use the lightweight DEs to have decent performance on my garbage dell tower PC. Meanwhile today I have a 10 year old PC that I keep meaning to decommission and it runs gnome fine. I just checked and it has worse performance than a raspberry pi.

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PsyOmega@reddit

On a low end machine, yes, you'll see a difference between Gnome and XFCE and even between Gnome and KDE, Gnome will be slower and sluggish.

I use gnome on an i5-4200u laptop and it's perfectly snappy.

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DriNeo@reddit

Gnome is typically a product from a corporation. They can update their hardware frequently, so they don't give a f... to old, but nice machines that runs Xfce smootly.

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Ilikecomputersfr@reddit

Which is pretty much absolutely nonsense nowadays because even the Lowest end machines you can purchase are going to be powerful enough to run anything out of the box

I only know of a single thing still running a Pentium III and no one would buy or acquire this without first being aware of what it is anyway.

[-]

SubstanceLess3169@reddit

Completely unrelated to bloat stuff: I just dislike Gnome's design.. totally my opinion btw also something related to GNOME: it's just bloated thank you thank you

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Icy_Research8751@reddit

i just dont like JS being used to code a shell

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Confident_Hyena2506@reddit

People use bloat to describe anything they don't like. It's a silly term.

If you don't like something then just remove it.

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kernpanic@reddit

I'll provide a direct example. I have many many Linux machines running the old way, with shared homes from nfs.

Suddenly I'm running into disk space issues where I shouldn't be. On my 50tb partition, I've suddenly got over 900TB used. ( zfs with compression).

Start trying to find the issue...

Well, I've of my users logged in twice, to two different machines at the same time. The first login was fine. The second login was Max rate logging to a hidden log file: mysql: database files locked.

The contacts (pim) manager simply runs a full copy of mysql in the background to store contacts. A feature that none of my users use, and if they did, there would be a Max of 100 or so.

So every login has a full copy of mysql running. That's bloat.

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lebean@reddit

Lol, so you massively screwed up on a poorly setup system, and blame it on bloat in GNOME. Wow.

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kernpanic@reddit

Don't know if you've run much Linux / Unix over the last 30 years in an enterprise environment, but having a shared home across multiple machines is an extremely common setup from the Unix world. Gnome not being able to handle multiple logins for a single user and just blindly shitting itself into a hidden undocumented log file is a bad design.

But we arent talking about that. We're talking about bloat. Having a full copy of myself running for every user de login just to potentially store a couple of contacts- is in my definition a fucking hell of a lot of bloat.

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rockymega@reddit

*MySQL not "myself"

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skoove-@reddit

ok a good example of actual bloat would be the 3d model support in word and PowerPoint (at least of the last time i used it 2 years ago)

they put a 3d renderer inside the office programs along with animations and pretty decent rendering, added orientation controls and everything

just so you can have 3d models in your word and powepoints

that is pretty objectively out of scope and wasteful

buuuut its Microsoft so

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JockstrapCummies@reddit

just so you can have 3d models in your word and powepoints

that is pretty objectively out of scope and wasteful

Au contraire, unnecessary bling is exactly what is needed in presentation software.

Have you never presented a project for a bunch of important and clueless people? Those distracting aesthetics are completely necessary to sell ideas to them. It's all about packaging. Thinking they are bloat is a function-over-form-ist's misunderstanding of what presentations' true nature is.

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rockymega@reddit

3D models are awesome for presentations

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myrsnipe@reddit

Or you know, notepad stalling at startup because it's authenticating my windows user and checking for a copilot license.. Notepad of all programs

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skoove-@reddit

well, if it did not do that you could not have a LLM powered text editing experience!!

i found out fairly recently while looking at a freinds computer that copilot is on the taskbar, crazy shit

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rhapdog@reddit

My new laptop has a copilot key. I've remapped it in Fedora to switch between integrated and dedicaated GPU. Now it's actually useful and does something truly intelligent.

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GHaxZ@reddit

May I ask how you achieved that?

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rhapdog@reddit

Wrote a script to choose the graphics mode, then prompts to reboot. I used GNOME settings to launch the command on that key press. Had to install EnvyControl, and it uses it to handle the switching. There are more elegant ways of doing this, one being a GNOME extension called GPU Profile Selector, but I was determined to make the CoPilot key useful. You can also set it to launch your favorite AI, like ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini, or whatever. Just use Chrome to save it as a Web App, and launch the web app from the command entered for the key press of the CoPilot key. Easy.

#!/bin/bash

# Get current mode for reference

CURRENT_MODE=$(envycontrol --query)

echo "Current GPU mode: $CURRENT_MODE"

# Prompt for choice (single keypress, no Enter)

echo "Select GPU mode:"

echo "1: Integrated (Intel only, power-saving)"

echo "2: NVIDIA (RTX 4050 only, performance)"

echo "3: Hybrid (balanced, default)"

read -n 1 -p "Press 1, 2, or 3: " choice

echo "" # Newline for readability

# Handle the choice

case "$choice" in

1)

echo "Switching to integrated mode..."

OUTPUT=$(sudo -n envycontrol --switch integrated 2>&1)

echo "$OUTPUT"

notify-send "GPU Mode Switch" "Switched to integrated mode. Reboot required!"

;;

2)

echo "Switching to NVIDIA mode..."

OUTPUT=$(sudo -n envycontrol --switch nvidia 2>&1)

echo "$OUTPUT"

notify-send "GPU Mode Switch" "Switched to NVIDIA mode. Reboot required!"

;;

3)

echo "Switching to hybrid mode..."

OUTPUT=$(sudo -n envycontrol --switch hybrid 2>&1)

echo "$OUTPUT"

notify-send "GPU Mode Switch" "Switched to hybrid mode. Reboot required!"

;;

*)

echo "Invalid choice: $choice. No changes made."

notify-send "GPU Mode Switch" "Invalid choice. No changes made."

exit 1

;;

esac

echo "Reboot now to apply changes? (y/n)"

read -n 1 -p "" reboot_choice

echo ""

if [ "$reboot_choice" = "y" ] || [ "$reboot_choice" = "Y" ]; then

sudo reboot

else

echo "Remember to reboot manually to apply the GPU mode change."

fi

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imtryingmybes@reddit

Bloat for me is stuff thats both useless(to me) and difficult/impossible to remove. Such as xbox-live, copilot, Bing, edge, and the fucking ads on current windows. I don't want to feel like I'm walking into Madison Square Garden when I start up my pc. I only want my pc to do the shit I tell it to. I use arch btw

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Saragon4005@reddit

There was a period when Microsoft was convinced we are replacing PCs with VR. They turned out to be at least 20 if not 30 years early.

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yrro@reddit

Id love to see their user stories for these garbage features.

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thrakkerzog@reddit

I don't know if it's still the case, but I used to have a problem with gnome-shell leaking memory. I would issue the command to tell it to restart, but this only worked on X11 so I would have to log out and back in to reclaim memory once I moved to Wayland. It's one of the reasons why I stopped using GNOME.

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narwhalbaconer420@reddit

Go back 10 years to the early versions of Gnome 3 and you will see they were really rough. My shell used to balloon to 10gb+ daily until I had to restart it. I spent some time looking into the issue trackers and it could have been a combination of things, like some weird driver interactions, earlier versions of their JS engine being leaky, but it's all sorted now.

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strings_on_a_hoodie@reddit

Truth be told when it comes down to it and you’re running whatever programs you use and are doing you’re daily shit, every DE is fairly close to each other nowadays. Yes environments like LXQT and such are lighter than Plasma and GNOME but once you’ve got a browser and all your other programs it doesn’t really make much difference in my experience unless you’re running on a potato.

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mishrashutosh@reddit

None of the major Linux desktop environments are bloated.

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jacek_@reddit

This! Gnome has it's problems IMO, but being bloated is not one of them.

[-]

grass221@reddit

I am considering giving gnome a try in fedora (I am currently using KDE plasma) - what is/are the problems with gnome? I understand that it is different in the app drawer style, apps occupying separate workspaces etc. But what is something that is very difficult in gnome (even with an extension) that is basic functionality and is easy to do in KDE plasma?

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jacek_@reddit

I used Gnome for a few years before switching to Plasma. My issues with Gnome:

bad default settings making the desktop barely usable (but looks nice on screenshots though and it seems like that's the major goal)
to change settings most people need you need tools that are not part of Gnome (like gnome-tweaks)
Gnome is unusable without extensions. But they break often and the compatibility usually breaks after each major update.
electron apps (like vscode) still need hacks to render non-blurry on wayland sessions with fractional scaling, hacks often break with updates.

On the other hand in Plasma:

default settings are great and the DE is usable from day 1.
the number of settings you can tweak can be overwhelming, but you can do anything you want without external tools and hacks.
it has a "Apply scaling themselves" for "Legacy applications (X11)" that makes all the electron apps scale properly without any changes, scripts, hacks.

So to sum up. Gnome is made to look pretty, but is annoying and unusable without tinkering (and breaks often). Plasma just works.

[-]

ueox@reddit

Its not unusable by default, its just a very opinionated workflow unless you round things out with some extensions. Using workspaces to manage windows works REALLY well in vanilla gnome.

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ultratensai@reddit

Last Gnome release I used was 42 and not sure how much it changed but a lot of options are either hidden or don’t exist.

Here are few things on top of my mind: - lid control action needs Gnome Tweaks - system tray requires a separate extension - no dedicated software to manage Gnome extensions, you either use browser extension or CLI

[-]

lebean@reddit

no dedicated software to manage Gnome extensions, you either use browser extension or CLI

This one is wrong, "Extensions" is the built-in and default app for managing your extensions. They're just moved out of the Settings app into their own specific app.

[-]

ultratensai@reddit

Good to know, will definitely try Gnome again sometime in the future

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KnowZeroX@reddit

Well for one, gnome extensions are monkey patches so they can easily break after an update, even worse how it is setup, even if the extension works but the author didn't update the metadata, it will fail

On top of that despite claims of trying to make stuff consistent, it is fairly inconsistent and even breaks their own guidelines

https://woltman.com/gnome-bad/

[-]

kinda_guilty@reddit

It is a very opinionated system. You either love the way it works (and I do) or you don't.

[-]

DudeLoveBaby@reddit

This is a very biased article but it's also a very detailed blow-by-blow analysis and there's value in that. Gives you a decent idea of it from the perspective of someone who hates GNOME for fair reasons

[-]

BeatTheBet@reddit

For the short time I used Gnome, I don't remember being too annoyed by anything.

But on KDE Plasma, Akonadi/PIM and relevant packages are not only unneeded (though I don't doubt some people might actually use them), but has caused me issues by the way they try to centralize everything.

So now part of my setup script is to completely nuke those. Other than that, I indeed wouldn't call it bloated.

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mishrashutosh@reddit

I do use Plasma without the PIM suite, browser connector, and a few other apps, but I still wouldn't call them bloat. They are nice to have for people who want such features out of the box, and easy to tuck away for those who don't. I use an ansible playbook to setup my Plasma desktop with a list of individual packages.

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KnowZeroX@reddit

Akonadi/PIM runs an entire mysql server in background, it is overkill.

Generally, KDE is available in Full, Standard and Minimal editions. If you opt for Standard, it won't include Akonadi/PIM, only full.

[-]

BrodatyBear@reddit

The problem is that it's included in most distros that have KDE. The background things are one thing, but I find it a little annoying how unintuitive it is...

When I was a fresh user, it randomly popped up, and I was really confused about why it was there, what summoned it, and about what password they were asking me about since my password didn't work, setup also had some quirks.

I think currently there should be a better way of doing that, especially on systems with TPM.

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KnowZeroX@reddit

Akonadi isn't included in most distros these days. Before KDE full was common but these days KDE standard is what is usually used.

kwallet depends on your security, here on opensuse it pops up even on my wifi. If it popped up randomly it may be your browser as many browsers use the keyring.

You can have it auto log into kwallet via pam when you log in so it doesn't bug you.

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BeatTheBet@reddit

It's not bloat up until you run an update and KWallet (or some other similarly shitty akonadi app) starts begging you for attention...

Ansible has been in my "to-learn" list for quite some time, I should eventually sit down and get to it... Must be a godsend once you learn how to use it.

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KnowZeroX@reddit

kwallet is a keyring, while it can be annoying it actually is important for security of password management and two factor auth.

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mishrashutosh@reddit

i have barely scraped the surface of ansible but it's great for a few simple things I want to do. here's my incomplete and roughly cobbled together playbook for installing plasma packages and enabling some systemd units on an arch system: https://pvbin.ashutoshmishra.org/?5a38377b29992a80#CJFLA6Zq1rp8dVVL4wFT33TyWTkFMZfUPQwWP6Xp4w33

some modules and package names will be different on fedora and other distros.

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dcherryholmes@reddit

Personally I'd add Kwallet to that list. Easily hands-down the worst "feature" of KDE. Although as you said, I don't doubt there are some people out there who somehow like and use it. But it's the first thing I disable in any fresh install and I don't think I'm alone in that. I get what it's trying to do, but it just sucks at it. And I hate saying that b/c in most other respects I'm a KDE fanboy.

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BeatTheBet@reddit

Pretty sure KWallet is part of the same "suite" and I did mention it specifically further down. And I'm a KDE fanboy as well, that's why I think it's important to criticize its bad parts: being fair and honest with its drawbacks is a necessary driving factor for improvement...

[-]

yukeake@reddit

On an even semi-modern machine, this is absolutely correct.

If you have a machine old or resource-strapped enough that a GNOME/KDE/etc... desktop environment is too much, use an old-school window manager like Windowmaker (or Fluxbox, TWM, etc...). Heck, I know folks who still use these on modern systems.

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Provoking-Stupidity@reddit

If you have a machine old or resource-strapped enough that a GNOME/KDE/etc... desktop environment is too much,

How old would this machine be? I've had Mint running with Cinnamon on a 2006 Thinkpad T60 with an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 4GB RAM, i965 integrated graphics.

[-]

yukeake@reddit

2 cores? 4GB RAM? that's a 20 year old luxury appliance you've got there! =D

One place I worked at needed to keep some rather ancient hardware up and running for licensing reasons. The machine that generated sublicenses would have been lapped on the track by a Pi at least twice over. One core, 256MB of RAM, the cheapest video chipset they could put into the thing and still run a display, all running a version of Redhat that pre-dated RHEL. GNOME or KDE wasn't even an option. Windowmaker ran very nicely on it, though. For access to the one app the licensing guy needed, that worked out. We finally ditched that POS about five years ago. Wasn't sad to see it go, but that little desktop was a trooper.

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chemistryGull@reddit

Everyone who says otherwise shall take a step back and take a look at windows.

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SEI_JAKU@reddit

While I utterly despise even Windows 10, it's somehow still more civilized than GNOME at this point.

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OhHaiMarc@reddit

Great way to say you really don’t know shit about how computers work under the hood

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SEI_JAKU@reddit

Not only does this have absolutely nothing to do with what's being talked about, my point remains true.

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OhHaiMarc@reddit

No one here is a shill, you’re delusional.

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loozerr@reddit

The Windows equivalent isn't bloated either. It's the rest of what's bundled.

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Mars_Bear2552@reddit

i would call the start menu components bloated, since they switched to react native

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TheConspiretard@reddit

ai ai ai ai ai microsoft store ai ai ai ai ai shovelware ai ai ai ai ai ai ai we’re updating, please do not turn of your computer ai ai

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ultratensai@reddit

Gnome software is installed by default with automatic updates enabled on several distros but I guess you use Arch btw.

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MATHIS111111@reddit

The existence of something worse doesn't negate that something else is also bad. Yes, Windows is worse, but Gnome can still be "bloated" compared to dwm. If you just want a window manager, a full DE will install a ton of stuff you won't use, ergo "bloat".

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chemistryGull@reddit

You are comparing a Window manager with a Desktop environment there. Which makes no sense, of course there is more stuff preinstalled on a DE. I wouldn’t automatically consider that bloatware. No experience in what gnome preinstalls tho, can only talk from the KDE pov.

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juaaanwjwn344@reddit

Well, I like GNOME but on my laptop with 8GB of RAM it always crashes, how do I optimize it, I literally have it in its vanilla version.

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lebean@reddit

You absolutely have hardware issues or have done something weird with your install. "Always crashes" doesn't remotely describe anything about the last several releases of GNOME, it's been rock solid. What distro, and did you use their default GNOME?

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DuckSword15@reddit

Gnome works fine in a vm with 2GB of ram. Sounds like you have some hardware issues going on.

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mishrashutosh@reddit

That's not due to bloat. I've used GNOME and Plasma on 4GB systems, and while it wasn't the best experience, it was perfectly usable even with a few tabs in Firefox. Can you share more details about your system and setup?

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LonelyMachines@reddit

Deepin can get pretty hoggy with resources.

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Reasonable-Web1494@reddit

Tell that to someone who uses sway.

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Acrobatic-Rock4035@reddit

Gnome is fine, but if you install gnome extras, be ready for extras.

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devu_the_thebill@reddit

I have fedora workstation install and i used hyprland daily for past 2 years, with around 800mb ram usage on desktop. But recently i was forced to switch to wifi from ethernet. And i noticed i have really wierd packet lost spikes, weirdly switching back to gnome fixed it but not only gnome looks 10 times worse and is worse for productivity, but it also straight up uses ~3GB ram. 3 times more what my not that light hyprland used. And for me its not an issue cause i have 32GB ram but i would assume for someone with 8GB it would be day and night diffrence.

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DeKwaak@reddit

Gnome and kde are bloated. You don't need gigabytes of memory in use if you just select another window manager and experience.

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Provoking-Stupidity@reddit

It has as much bloatware as you want to install. I think the problem is that people install a distro that uses Gnome, say Ubuntu or Mint, that throws everything and the kitchen sink in. You end up with a quite bloated install compared to say doing it in Arch where it will just install the absolute barest Gnome DE install possible.

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SEI_JAKU@reddit

Ubuntu actually uses a heavily neutered version of GNOME, which is already heavily neutered itself.

Mint doesn't use GNOME at all. You can always try to install it of course, but there's no proper burn-to-disc/USB for it, and the Mint devs do not support it.

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Chester_Linux@reddit

I would say the opposite, I think Gnome is very incomplete. I believe whoever said that is just a hater

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SEI_JAKU@reddit

It's completely possible for something to be both incomplete and bloated.

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Impressive_Guide_359@reddit

IDK man gnome looks heavy

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Wiwwil@reddit

Gnome uses 3-4 GB of RAM, it's not bad per say, it just sort of caches what's used by the system. It's kind of the same complaint as Firefox. It uses available ram.

However it doesn't use as much as W11 that uses 18GB just to boot, that's bloated

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AK_41@reddit

I've gnome but I can't uninstall the default apps from software store and I can't remove from terminal one or other dependency breaks. I can't install bare minimum because I need some of those default gnome apps but don't need all on that wine apps aren't getting removed but unable to find in pacman RNS whyyyy????

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KartofDev@reddit

I am one of the people that say that it is bloated. But my option comes from the fact that It includes too many apps I don't use at all, so it differs from person to person.

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rarsamx@reddit

Honestly, I think you are reading old posts. It's been a while since Gnome regained their good reputation.

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StrongStuffMondays@reddit

In my experience both KDE and Gnome systems after logging in use less than 2 gigs of RAM (usually little more than 1) which IMO is fine with 8 to 16 gigs of RAM. So I cannot answer your quesion because I don't think it's correct.

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urosp@reddit

Also how much of it is GNOME versus how distributions package things together? There are so many factors in what makes up "bloat". In Linux, as people have pointed out, people call things bloat usually when they simply don't like it.

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TomDuhamel@reddit

For some reason, I see people misunderstanding how RAM works on modern computers all the time. It gets worse when they get on Linux because it works differently than on Windows and therefore they assume there's something wrong.

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Loose-Committee6665@reddit

If GNOME is bloated then they haven't seen Windows 11. If you have 8 gigs of ram or less, consider it to be as slow as a sloth.

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MichaelTunnell@reddit

GNOME is built on JavaScript which is not the most efficient solution so it does tend to be heavier on resources than other desktops but that doesn’t mean it’s bloated. The idea someone would claim it’s as bloated as Windows 11 is completely laughable nonsense. I don’t even know what to respond to someone who would say that except laughing at how ridiculous that claim is.

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SmileyBMM@reddit

GNOME for a bit was pretty inefficient, but they actually fixed that a couple years ago. GNOME runs fine, even on lower end hardware.

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theREALnicahokie@reddit

The GNOME software store app has known issues relinquishing memory

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Provoking-Stupidity@reddit

Everyone banging on about bloat. Sorry but unless you're running DSL you're all running bloat... ;-p

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stef_eda@reddit

it's not only about RAM usage. Startup time and stability are other parameters to monitor (expecially on low end computers).

I am 99.9% confident I can crash at least one of the gnome application / widget / accessory in a few minutes on any Gnome version. (this always happened to me when trying it).

I don't use any DE and I have tried absolutely hard to remove anything (if possible) that has the string freedesktop.org inside from my Devuan system.

I have then written a tiny desktop manager myself. One single process, no threads, one single configuration file, handles external storage mount / umount, handle network connections, monitor disk and cpu, battery status, cpu frequency governor, desktop icons and launchers, external monitor switching / reconfiguring, keyboard shortcuts for any command I need, 'post-it' virtual stickers with comments on screen. Trivial tasks that anyone can implement. All this takes 18MB resident RAM, one process.

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LonelyMachines@reddit

When it first came out, many of us were still running computers from the early 2000s, and it was slow.

Nowadays, that's not really an issue. My main problem is the workflow is weird on it.

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Isofruit@reddit

I generally go by the videos "The Linux Experiment" puts out in terms of DE performance. There GNOME is pretty middle of the pack or even better, on top of being well designed and consistent. Given that, I'm chalking up the "bloat complaints" being very edge-case-y from users on 10+ year old laptops that they refuse to upgrade.

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mrlinkwii@reddit

Gnome isnt bloated , in fact its missing alot of basic features

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EcstaticSong6131@reddit

Not really, no. I have 8GBs of RAM and I run Gnome on top of Mint. Takes about 1.2 - 1.3 GB at idle.

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amroamroamro@reddit

https://i.imgur.com/gGv04v2.png

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Optimal-Savings-4505@reddit

Scattered include directives would be my hunch. I don't know the codebase, but rewrites to use fewer libraries may trim it down. Don't think I would try though, could be very difficult and cause lots of breakage.

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Misicks0349@reddit

It isn't really, sure if you're comparing it to a bare bones compositor it does use a lot more memory but thats because those compositors barely do anything beyond managing windows.

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qalmakka@reddit

The whole "$DESKTOP is bloated" thing has been out of date since 2009, more or less every single modern computer that can run a modern browser can run any DE with RAM to spare

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Upper_Canada_Pango@reddit

I'm basically lifelong linux novice (I don't understand linux and I just look things up if something is broken or I want to change something), but I loved GNOME, and as far as I'm concerned it's worked better for me than every windows release since windows 3.

[-]

noisyboy@reddit

Hangover from the days of 256MB ram.

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Own-Radio-3573@reddit

Gnome lets you run practically headless if you want to.

KDE will fuss but is great as your workstation.

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bryyantt@reddit

Get off the internet and enjoy a walk outside friend. This nonsense has been going on for several years and everyone who has a life has moved on. Everyone has their own idea of what is and isn't necessary for a functional/useable desktop experience. Please stop with this bloat nonsense and just use what you want.

[-]

PsyOmega@reddit

This.

hardware and ram is cheap now and this debate literally doesn't matter. use what you want.

Resource wise, 6th gen intel and 32gb ram is like, $100 total used. will run gnome snappy as hell.

[-]

d11112@reddit

I quote rweninger :

1. Data Collection: GNOME collects more user data than KDE. GNOME's developers have been criticized for collecting user data, such as system information, usage patterns, and even user behavior. This data is used to improve GNOME, but some users are concerned about the potential for data misuse. KDE, on the other hand, has a stronger focus on user privacy and collects minimal data.

2. Online Services Integration: GNOME has tighter integration with online services, KDE, while still offering some online service integration, is more cautious in this regard. Even if the software is missing, the GNOME API's are present for the connectors. I am not aware that TAILS forked GNOME and removed them.

3. Telemetry: GNOME has a telemetry system that collects data on user behavior, such as which applications are used most frequently.

4. Third-Party Dependencies: GNOME relies on more third-party dependencies, such as systemd, which can increase the attack surface and potential security risks. KDE, on the other hand, uses more in-house components, which can reduce the risk of data leaks or security breaches.

5. Forks and Alternatives: KDE has a more open and modular architecture, which makes it easier for users to customize and modify the desktop environment. This also leads to a more vibrant community of forks and alternatives, such as KDE Plasma Mobile, which can offer more privacy-focused options.

6. Tracking Protection: KDE Plasma has built-in tracking protection features, such as the ability to block tracking cookies and disable telemetry. GNOME does not have similar built-in features.

7. Systemd: GNOME relies heavily on systemd, which has been criticized for its potential security risks and data collection practices. KDE does not rely on systemd as heavily.

8. Flatpak and Snap: GNOME has tighter integration with Flatpak and Snap (in Ubuntu), which are package management systems that can increase the attack surface and potential security risks. KDE also supports Flatpak and Snap, but with more caution.

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Fit_Smoke8080@reddit

RAM consumption is an useless metric unless you have less than 4GBs of it in totak. It's CPU usage what makes or break a DE IMO. Plasma does it better for me but GNOME isn't terrible, it does it much better than people say they do. Maybe they use Ubuntu as a metric? (Not the most lightweight OOB).

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SoftwareSloth@reddit

I think gnome is fine. There’s a lot of extremely opinionated Linux users out there that are really just parsing hairs over what’s “better”. If you really want to know, just try it out for yourself and see if you like the experience. It costs nothing but your time.

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the_humeister@reddit

twm is the way to go

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2rad0@reddit

twm is the way to go

twm would actually be a great options if I didn't have to hover my mouse over a window to give it keyboard focus. WindowMaker is #1 linux DE.

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rqdn@reddit

Linux users can’t even agree on the definition of "bloated" vs. "lightweight/optimized" systems. Also, Linux ate my RAM.

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MoussaAdam@reddit

Compared to Plasma ? I don't think it's bloated

Compared to XFCE or a simple window manager+compositor, it is bloated

one thing is bloated in reference to a standard

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pizza_ranger@reddit

Desktops are bloated by default, that's the good and bad point about desktops, they are made to be ready to use with a bar, a menu, a config menu, etc.

Only tiling window managers/compositors or some really minimalist desktops are not bloated.

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barraponto@reddit

Window managers are bloated by default, that's the good and bad point about window managers, they are made to be ready to use with mouse pointers, window management, configuration, etc

Only terminal interfaces or some really minimalist command lines are not bloated.

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CorgiComfortable5161@reddit

Terminals are bloated by default, only the real TTY is not bloat.

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Exernuth@reddit

TTY are pure bloat. I do everything in bios/UEFI.

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barraponto@reddit

Real programmers use butterflies.

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Ok-Winner-6589@reddit

Maybe I'm crazy but

mouse pointers, window management, configuration, etc

A Windows manager needs to manage Windows... And even if they could have a non integrated mouse pointer, well it's not that much to call It bloated.

Also every software has it's own configuration files...

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OhHaiMarc@reddit

How is it bloat if it is using resources to achieve its core functionality?

[-]

manobataibuvodu@reddit

One man's bloat is another's essential features

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pizza_ranger@reddit

Peak quote

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edilaq@reddit

yo solo probe el GNOME que venia con Ubuntu 24.04 y al menos en mi equipo antiguo (lenovo thinkpad x140e, 4GB de RAM, CPU Dualcore AMD E2), si estaba pesado y tenia bugs, como que me duplicaba algunos iconos, como los de LibreOffice, por eso despues cambie de escritorio a LXQT

[-]

ficskala@reddit

What is so bloated about GNOME?

I honestly think it's more of an Ubuntu problem than a GNOME problem, it's fine on fedora, and i assume most other distros, i haven't really used gnome for a while since i don't like its design, and lack of customizability

I see people saying that GNOME uses half of the memory even if you are doing nothing on your computer

well, if you've got 4GB of ram, yeah, it would use more than half, but for a modern pc with 32-64GB of RAM, it will be barely noticable compared to your other background processes like steam and similar

people that say it’s as bloated as Windows 11

not even close

why people say KDE Plasma is much less bloated?

well this part is kinda true, i wouldn't say it's much less bloated, just a bit less, and it feels more responsive, probably something to do with animation speed or something, gnome is trying really hard to be the macos of linux DEs

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Existing-Tough-6517@reddit

Bloat is almost always a meaningless term with no useful definition. People using it have different conflicting definitions and oft nonsensical or merely aestetic goals.

Like most most of your memory using is probably going to be your browser. Gnome does use more memory but if you have enough its unlikely to bother you. In the earlier years this was more painful ram being more expensive and gnome having an unfixable memory leak for like the first 8 years after the release of gnome 3.

Gnome partically with animations is going to feel slower on quite old and slow hardware. Stuff like xfce is nicer in that case. KDE has other virtues than ram usage like better apps than gnome better wayland support, etc

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ItsMeSlinky@reddit

RAM usage is not bloat.

Memory is there to be used. DEs will cache data in RAM in order to be responsive to user inputs; caching will use RAM. That's literally the intended behavior.

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eddnor@reddit

PCs that once run windows 7 fluid now struggle to run gnome shell yet with windows 7 you could do a lot more with the ui. You tell me 🤷🏻‍♂️

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heinrich6745@reddit

Gnome has had a memory leak for over a decade

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MasterGeekMX@reddit

That mostly comes from people who want less than 500 MB of RAM usage at idle.

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seiha011@reddit

Needs 13% of memory with conky and some Extensions.... I'm bloated btw... 😎

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ReallyEvilRob@reddit

Just open up a process viewer while gnome is idling.

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acewing905@reddit

Gnome has a lot of issues that irritate me and I'd rather use Windows 11 than it any day

And yet "bloat" is not a word I'd use to describe it. If anything it's the opposite. They've been regularly removing stuff, leaving only the things that the lowest common denominator would use

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ultratensai@reddit

Gnome minimal install isn’t so bloated - you usually end up adding stuff like automatic mount, file browsers with image previews, notification, system tray, etc onto WMs.

The problem I have with Gnome is that it’s very cumbersome to deviate from the default, forces you to rely heavily on Gnome tweaks and various extensions.

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Reasonable_Flower_72@reddit

GNOME sucks, but memory consumption isn’t reason why

Well, considering RAM usage compared to features of extensions-less Gnome one would say it’s bloated, but 1216MB vs 1412MB isn’t seriously meaningful difference in any way.

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WideMixture4478@reddit

Gnome is fine and it doesn’t use that many resources. For me, Gnome on Debian uses around 1.2GB of RAM, and works really fast. If it is smartly allocating RAM to use what I have, like macOS does, I’m also fine with it.

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djfdhigkgfIaruflg@reddit

It's laggy. A simple window movement takes way more time than it should.

I have 64gb of ram and SSDs

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DistributionRight261@reddit

Like 10 years ago GNOME has a memory leak that took years to get fixed, while KDE 5 was released fixing all the memory issues with KDE 4.

By what I hear, now GNOME is fine, I think is a little more GPU demanding.

[-]

varky@reddit

By far the biggest bloat in the Linux environment are people constantly calling stuff bloated because they personally don't use something.

Gnome is fine. Not everyone's cup of tea, but still fine.

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CCCBMMR@reddit

Gnome is so bloated that extension have to be utilized to have expected functionality.

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OhHaiMarc@reddit

It’s not bloated at all. This thread is full of insane opinions.

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OopsWeKilledGod@reddit

We're on /r/linux, I feel that insane opinions are mandatory.

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OhHaiMarc@reddit

This and the Linux gaming sub make me feel like I’m the only adult in a room of edgy teenagers

[-]

samueru_sama@reddit

GNOME uses the most resources while having the least features.

Also all libadwaita apps take almost 1 second to launch on my system. (with GTK3 and Qt apps this is less than 200ms): https://imgur.com/a/yCBrzwB

[-]

cyrixlord@reddit

Some people expect Linux to only take 640k of memory and for on a floppy so anything bigger is bloat... It is something had the memory footprint approaching Windows because bloat is why they left Windows.. or something

[-]

EtherealN@reddit

The one complaint I've had was the social media daemons. A couple hundred megs of daemons to handle social media and cloud stuff that I wasn't even using.

But it was very simple to just remove those packages. At least on Arch - I just looked up the Gnome meta-package or whatnot, tracked down the names of the offending bits, and pacman -R'd them. Doing this, I got memory use down to levels more akin to an XFCE system.

However, for all I know, KDE Plasma has the same thing (I haven't checked), and this will most definitely vary depending on who packaged it up for you.

And, of course, the system I was running Gnome on had 32GiB RAM. Worrying about one chromium tab's worth of RAM eaten by superfluous daemons on such a system... You're extremely unlikely to ever suffer any deleterious effects.

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drunken-acolyte@reddit

My issue with GNOME is the opposite: it's like the devs look for features to strip out every edition.

[-]

gannex@reddit

I have noticed that the Ubuntu installer filesize has been approaching Windows size lately though. It used to be under 4GB. 24.04 is like almost 7 GB now I think

[-]

Ok-Winner-6589@reddit

They Don't like how GNOME doesn't let you configure It. Thats all their issue

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Material-Nose6561@reddit

And a lot of that is mitigated by using Gnome extensions. I’m using Dash to Panel and Arc Menu for a more traditional desktop experience. Just Perfection lets you tweak a bunch of things to your liking.

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Basherker@reddit

I used it on a laptop from 2013 with fedora The laptop had windows 11 and fedora dualbooted on it When i ran fedora, it would take at most a minute to boot, and the ram usage barely reached 1.5 gb/6gb And every app would work immediately , the bit of slowness I had was because of the hard drive in the pc But windows? , it takes almost 10 mins to boot, and when I enter, it would take another 5 mins so it can work, and the ram usage was 4gb/6gb even though it was tiny11 And yes I used windows 10 and it had even worse speeds (maybe because it was more bloated) Fedora ran much better in my old laptop

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LavaDrinker21@reddit

I think a lot of people would argue the opposite; considering the Gnome/GTK devs have been REMOVING features.

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kalzEOS@reddit

I've been told that Gnome is made to consume RAM based on how much of it you have. The more RAM you have the more it consumes.

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kombiwombi@reddit

That's not really the case. Any program in a virtual memory operating system like Windows or Linux has a 'working set' of memory pages. That's the amount of memory needed to make an acceptable rate of progress.

That number doesn't really change for a particular program and its data. There used to be a lot of work on operating systems about how to ensure interactive programs had their working set in RAM, whilst non-interactive programs could swap pages to and from disk as needed.

These days it's the opposite. The working set of all programs sits comfortably in RAM. So what do we do with that excess RAM? An answer is to cache the disk I/O so that it appears to be faster.

So a well-written operating system should appear to be using all of its RAM. If not for the needs of the programs, then for caching to help those programs run faster.

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Richard_Masterson@reddit

GNOME uses far more resources than XFCE or LXDE and has less features overall. That's what they mean by "bloated."

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MelioraXI@reddit

Gnome is bloated? Imo kde is worse.

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UnratedRamblings@reddit

In terms of ram usage, this is true. Years ago it used to be the opposite. XFCE has always managed to squeeze the GTK processes down even further.

But in an age of 16gb laptops and 32gb desktops this is not an issue when the core Gnome install (at least on Fedora) is around 4-5gb. I've got Firefox, Thunderbird, VPN, Lollypop music and a few files windows and still only at 4.5gb used, which is pretty good.

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kombiwombi@reddit

Just for other readers, you should allow about 30GB for a Linux desktop and add some space for files on top of that.

If you don't have that space I'd recommend upgrading that old hard disk to a 'small' 128GB SSD, for maybe US$10.

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Glad_Beginning_1537@reddit

Gnome Software running in background without permission, starts hammering the system
Evolution data server

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pfp-disciple@reddit

Bloat has become an overused and vaguely defined word. It often means "not optimized the way I want it optimized, or including a feature I think is unnecessary", often without hard analysis to back up the claims.

GNOME is featureful, and thus includes features that not everyone wants. This looks bloated, despite those features often consuming very little CPU, disk, or UI.

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SEI_JAKU@reddit

For why GNOME sucks, please see here. (Please read the entire thing.)

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amendCommit@reddit

Try using using MacOS on a MacBook Pro M3 with 8GB memory. With my a dozen tabs in Chrome, my IDE open and a couple of containers running, the thing will just go unresponsive for multiple seconds whenever I switch tasks.

Company won't provide better hardware.

I'm so glad when I go home to my Dell XPS (i9, 32GB memory) and everything feels instant in Gnome.

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daemonpenguin@reddit

I see people saying that GNOME uses half of the memory even if you are doing nothing on your computer.

So you see people lying. Okay.

I even come across people that say it’s as bloated as Windows 11

And more people lying.

despite all of the telemetry on GNOME is opt in.

This has nothing to do with bloat.

I wonder how much actually bloatware does GNOME have and why people say KDE Plasma is much less bloated?

People are stupid, I guess. KDE Plasma and GNOME use almost exactly the same amount of CPU and RAM these days.

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yrro@reddit

I find GNOME Shell ends up eating half the memory on my computer after my session has been running for a couple of weeks. ;)

I'm not really sure what I can do to debug it because I have a bloody NVIDIA card. While I see moderate memory increase on my laptop with an Intel card after a long running session, it's nowhere near as bad, which leads me to conclude the fault is with NVIDIA.

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Leather_Flan5071@reddit

whoever said that is silly

newly installed debian 12 with gnome sips like 1.2 gigabytes of memory.

it's not gnome, it's usually the distro itself and the stuff it comes with. Like how ubuntu comes with more softwares and scripts and stuff than debian

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indvs3@reddit

GNOME uses half the memory

On a pc with 1GB of memory that's par for the course. On a pc with 32GB that would indicate an issue that I wouldn't blame the desktop environment for. If I had such an issue, I would determine which specific package is wasting or leaking memory and try to resolve that specific issue by force-reinstalling that package and its dependencies.

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Destroyerb@reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1n2e2v7/gnome_wayland_is_making_linux_more_user_friendly/nb5dc9q/

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Nordwald@reddit

Words loose meaning. Is it bloated in comparison to LXDE? absolutely. But still, it will take less RAM than Firefox with one tab open.

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OptimalAnywhere6282@reddit

sure, GNOME is bloated and uses a lot of RAM while idling, but comparing it to windows 11 is a crime.

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martian_doggo@reddit

Idk about half the other comments section but for me gnome took more cpu usage than KDE does, although I do have a very debloted KDE. Also KDE just looks better after some customisation.

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Beautiful_Ad_4813@reddit

There’s literally no DE in Linux that’s bloated

Unless one has 1GB of RAM and are hammering it trying to run Firefox or Chrome making the swap space work 1000% harder than it needs to be

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Oerthling@reddit

"bloat" is a vague term that people use in very different ways.

A strict definition would just apply to actual waste and add.

A program can be written very inefficiently using way more resources than necessary. That's bloat at its original core

But in a wider sense people use it for anything they don't like or need.

Ubuntu pre-installing Firefox as browser is core functionality for many users, but to people to people who'll immediately install say an Opera browser it's bloat, because it takes up space that they'll never make use of.

To some people a graphical DE by itself is bloat. Doesn't matter how well it is written.

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DankeBrutus@reddit

What is so bloated about GNOME?

Here’s the thing; it isn’t bloated. Maybe some distros bundle a tonne of packages that make people feel like GNOME is bloated.

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S7relok@reddit

Unused RAM is wasted ram. I prefer a system that makes use of it instead of a "debloated" one that need to load every things i will use from disk to RAM each time.

That space is available, using it to preload stuff isn't a bad idea

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niiiiisse@reddit

As others said, I don't think Gnome is bloated. In terms of efficiency, one argument for KDE could be that it's primarily written in C++ which is much more optimized than the JS variant that the Gnome shell runs on. I think KDE also got some sort of energy efficient software recognition a while back because of this.

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Comfortable_Relief62@reddit

Bloated is a meaningless term 90% of the time in the Linux community

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_angh_@reddit

It is coming by default with a rather large, opinionated set of software, like text editor, terminal, image viewer and so on. You probably can turn it off anyway during the install and I bet KDE come swith similar set of tools, so that probably people with a strong opinion makes such statements. Don't worry about it.

What is worrying though about gnone is as well a very opinionated workflow, where you either agree with choices made arbitrary by gnome maintainers or you have to use unsecure mechanism of plugins. I always liked gnome look and feel, but in the end being forced to single way of doing stuff and lack of customization made me dropping it and never coming back again. Now, I have what I need with hyprland.

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manobataibuvodu@reddit

Extensions are reviewed by GNOME developers, so it's as insecure as installing packages from your distros package manager

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_angh_@reddit

I would strongly argue that going to some website via some browser is much more vulnerable than using package manager.

In addition, I'd say that UI usability should not be hidden behind behind extensions, but available in configuration. For example, to use mouse to show the dock in Gnome requires you to move mouse in the top left corner of the screen. 'Genius' idea. Instead of having any simple option (because, you know, if I want to pop up my dock usually it means I want to click on something there, and making kilometers on my mouse and uw screen makes no sense) to select my 'hot corner' or 'hot edge' I have to go to my browser and install plugins. And those plugins break a lot, often with the Gnome update, because obviously Gnome devs do not care about plugins. Therefore, you have no option in gnome config, you have a shady website to download externally written piece of code to make it usable, but from now on you are going to face potential instabilities every time you update your gnome. This is beyond stupid.

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manobataibuvodu@reddit

When you are installing packages on your distro the files are coming from a known address on the internet, that's the same concept here. If you don't like using the browser (I myself think it's kind of weird that that is the 'default' way to get them too) you can use ExtensionManager.

As for your other points:

Yes, GNOME's workflow is the weakest when using only the mouse. I myself use either mouse + keyboard (so I use super key constantly) when actually doing work, and using only touchpad when doing whatever on my laptop. Although A quick flick to the top of the screen doesn't seem too bad when having in mind you don't really need to hit a small target.
Plugins break not because GNOME doesn't care about them, but because extensions are allowed to change basically anything about the shell through monkeypatching. This was a deliberate choice to maximize the freedom of extension developers to do what they please. If you use extensions just check with the extension manager app if all your extensions support the next major GNOME version before upgrading.

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Candid_Problem_1244@reddit

Depends on what distro I guess. GNOME that is shipped in Ubuntu is different from one on another distro.

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FabioSB@reddit

It depends on the size of the memory, if you are running a regular distro the system on a 3GB ram computer, yes, both gnome and kde will use the half of your ram. If you run a distro with sysV init, openRC or runit; like void or alpine Linux, ram usage will be less than a GB for any of those DE. The high ram issue is systemd. If you have more than 2GB at iddle probably a hardware or corrupt instalation issue

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Noctambulent@reddit

Gnome isn't my primary de but I do switch to it from time to time and I've never noticed any bloat or memory hogging at all.

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ben2talk@reddit

People talk rubbish...

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ilep@reddit

I think they were integrating a whole groupware-software to be loaded with a plain desktop, even if you don't want one. I stopped using Gnome a while back since I got frustrated with the decisions they make that feel backwards steps in usability, so I haven't checked in with the current situation.

The gist of it is that the vision they have for a desktop might be strange. I mean, sure, people want email clients, but leave that to a separate application instead of tying it into everything else, please.

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GaijinTanuki@reddit

A vocal portion of people using desktop Linux have become extremist desktop cultists. There's nothing particularly bloated about gnome.

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MeanEYE@reddit

I am not sure people talk about the same thing when they refer to bloat. You often see some claims like "feels bloated" along with "uses a lot of memory", etc.

Anything related to feeling is usually related to response time. That is to say consistency and duration between issued command or a click and desktop environment responding to that. Which is kind of funny because caching things usually results in faster response and cache means more memory usage.

Point being that there's a fine balance between fast running program and low resource usage. It usually boils down to sacrificing one of the things. If you want to save on CPU time, you cache things and sacrifice memory usage. And the other way around.

Another problem arises when people form expectations about how much memory should something take. For Gnome I can see how people would expect it not to take a lot of memory, after all there's not much to see. But there are a lot of small things that desktop needs to do. From listening and handling events coming from hardware space to handling colors of displays and integrating notifications through DBus. So it's deceptive to just guess how much code you need and how much memory is needed. But in general, every convenience like auto mounting things, automatic output change on headphones being plugged in and the like requires some code, some configuration interface, some settings daemon storing configuration and propagating changes.

That said, would I like if Gnome used less memory, absolutely. Do I think it's bloated. Not in the least. Just open process monitor, right click on gnome-shell and see memory maps. You'll see what it has to talk to, from Pango for font rendering to GTK, OpenGL libraries, Wayland libraries, PipeWire, SystemD. It needs to tap into everything.

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jerrydberry@reddit

Posting such questions is bloat. Measuring yourself and searching infinite existing discussion threads is more optimal.

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Jak1977@reddit

Welcome to the internet! Here you'll find people holding all sorts of nonsensical, or perhaps wildly outdated beliefs.

Can I interest you in a flame war about vim vs emacs?

If you have a really old clapped out machine, sure, maybe its relevant. In which case, don't run a desktop environment at all, run a window manager.

If you have a machine with at least 4 gb of ram, then it doesn't matter much. If you've got more than that, go ham.

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freaxje@reddit

The problem is often that people look not at the RSS but at the VSZ column. Latter is unimportant (since address space on 64bit is gigantic anyway). RSS is a little bit important.

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Krentenkakker@reddit

Says who ?

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catbrane@reddit

It seems fine to me. Here's my system, up for five days of heavy use, two 1440p displays, three chunky extensions:

$ ps aux | grep gnome
USER         PID %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND
gnome-r+    1543  0.0  0.0 521464 15364 ?        Ssl  Aug30   0:00 /usr/libexec/gnome-remote-desktop-daemon --system
john        2917  0.0  0.0 400280  9788 ?        SLsl Aug30   0:00 /usr/bin/gnome-keyring-daemon --foreground --components=pkcs11,secrets --control-directory=/run/user/1000/keyring
john        2946  0.0  0.0 171964  6048 tty2     Ssl+ Aug30   0:00 /usr/libexec/gdm-wayland-session env GNOME_SHELL_SESSION_MODE=ubuntu /usr/bin/gnome-session --session=ubuntu
john        2951  0.0  0.0 199800 14104 tty2     Sl+  Aug30   0:00 /usr/libexec/gnome-session-binary --session=ubuntu
john        3002  0.0  0.0  91156  5132 ?        Ssl  Aug30   0:00 /usr/libexec/gnome-session-ctl --monitor
john        3031  0.0  0.0 488240 15480 ?        Ssl  Aug30   0:05 /usr/libexec/gnome-session-binary --systemd-service --session=ubuntu
john        3076  1.1  0.2 4556708 305284 ?      Ssl  Aug30  83:18 /usr/bin/gnome-shell
john        3100  0.0  0.0 169124  6736 ?        Sl   Aug30   0:01 /usr/libexec/at-spi2-registryd --use-gnome-session
john        3120  0.0  0.0 660396 20244 ?        Sl   Aug30   0:00 /usr/libexec/gnome-shell-calendar-server
john        3152  0.0  0.0 2734692 27208 ?       Sl   Aug30   0:00 /usr/bin/gjs -m /usr/share/gnome-shell/org.gnome.Shell.Notifications
john        3292  0.0  0.1 1084568 193616 ?      Sl   Aug30   0:39 /usr/bin/gnome-software --gapplication-service
john        3555  0.0  0.0 681588 42560 ?        Ssl  Aug30   0:01 /usr/libexec/xdg-desktop-portal-gnome
john        3576  0.0  0.0 2734760 27396 ?       Sl   Aug30   0:00 /usr/bin/gjs -m /usr/share/gnome-shell/org.gnome.ScreenSaver
john        4876  0.0  0.0 766528 109180 ?       Ssl  Aug30   2:20 /usr/libexec/gnome-terminal-server

The RES (resident memory) column is the important one -- gnome-shell (the thing that runs the actual desktop) is 300mb, my terminals are 110mb, gnome-software is 200mb, nothing else is of any significance.

It's about 700mb total, which is a pretty small amount of memory on a modern system. A web browser will use a LOT more.

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zinozAreNazis@reddit

Absolutely nothing. Living with plasma 6 over the past couple of months, made me realize how polished Gnome is in comparison.

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AtlanticPortal@reddit

What you think is "bloat" is the fact that your PC uses all the RAM you gave it. Free RAM is wasted RAM. As long as it gets freed for your new launched apps you should not want to have free RAM.

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Alarming_Rate_3808@reddit

Whatever they may refer to as bloat is irrelevant for any PC or laptop that is less than 10 years old or that has at least 8GB of RAM.

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Other_Class1906@reddit

I think it's different things that have little functionality but somehow are pretty large and permanently in memory. I think there is sometimes a gnome-miner that re-indexes words for the search with super key (pretty annoying when you have an old laptop with 3-4Gb RAM), evolution is there in the background even if you don't use it with several megabytes, the gnome-shell isn't super small for how minimalistic it seems. And a whole lot of other services gvfs, gsd, XWayland (may soon be gone)...

And i think that linux distributions could improve performance for memory constrained systems if they used preemptive swapping: Don't need it, sleeping for some time, off to swap with you! Especially in systems with integrated graphics, where RAM is shared and heavily used for caching.

In some cases the size of the executable is just too large due to scripting languages or many different versions of the same shared libraries.

Space is cheap. Labour to test every single scenario against every single version of every dependency not so much. Sometimes you'd rather have quicker deployment than tiny optimised executables.

Have you tested gentoo...? ];-)

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TheRealHFC@reddit

I felt it was slightly more heavy on memory than Cinnamon DE, but not by much

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New-Macaron-5202@reddit

Runs a lot better than kde for me.

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Sirlius_RDT@reddit

yeah, gnome here

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flemtone@reddit

Gnome itself isnt bloated but Ubuntu and it's use of snaps bloats it considerably and causes performance issues.

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MatixFX@reddit

KDE is much more modular OTTB. It is designed that way, with modularity in mind, where GNOME is striving for this "unified" experience. That comes with a lot of what some people perceive as bloat. Both are very mature and stable DEs and you should use one that suits you the most.