mint 17 bloat?
 

AM I the only one who noticed how bloated cimmanon has goten? I have 2GB of ram and it crashed, not, crashed. Unity crashed before the desktop booted. Why is this happing, I ran 16 and 13.10 prefictly and now the new distros just crash.

It happens almost everywhere. The last two distros I tested with Gnome (something I generally avoid) showed an increase from idling at 200MB (Pinguy) to 400MB (Fedora). I can remember when you could run KDE on a 512MB machine! Only Xfce is exempt from the madness.

The problem seems to be that Mint gets bloated because Ubuntu gets bloated.
Cinnamon is another story. But then, why not use MATE? Or xfce?

I'm a long-term Mint fan. I had been using it since version 5, way back when it was down in he middle to bottom of the list on distrowatch. But you are right... bloat seems to be an issue now.

It used to be, that we could take Linux, and revive old computers with it. My daughter's eeePC1000HE is a good example. 512MB (now expanded to 1 or 2GB (can't remember), and a hard drive (not the SSD), with 8 hours autonomy (still giving 7 after all these years)). It was running windozeXP, and after all the updates bloatware, slowed down a lot (despite me maintaining it and keeping it clean).

I tried a Live Mint 17 xfce on it, and it takes just forever to load. After that, it runs a browser just fine, but I wouldn't use it for more than that. I've found Bodhi (with the nice E17), which has a minimum requirement of 128MB, and that seems to be a better fit for the old netbook. Their way of donig things is quite innovative... you install the OS, then you go to their web page, and they have links to help you install frequently used add-on packages, like flash, java, etc. You just click "install" and it takes care of the rest for you. Youtube, and my daughter's games, are working great, much to my surprise. And she is enthused at the speed boost, which is always nice when you put Linux onto an old puter.

I'm very sad that I will be letting Mint go - to me, there is a sense of security with Mint - there are resources and forums and a big community now, to help you out when you run into problems, and you know it will be maintained (and not abandoned like some). I have only good things to say about Mint... but I wish they had a minimalistic edition for those old computers.

Big and popular distros always end up bloated because they try to make everyone happy including new users to Linux, and try to support everything under the sun right out of the box.

That's why I like Arch because it really doesn't attempt to make anyone happy and has only what you install.

:hattip:

That is still the case, you only have to choose the right tool for the job, either a distro aimed at older/low-spec computers or a handmade build up from a general purpose distro.

The "bloat" Of Cinnamon, Gnome 3, KDE 4 and Unity can be explained easily:
1. Those desktop environments aim at the user that uses the computer as an appliance, not the specialist (though at least KDE is flexible enough to be used by anyone for any purpose). Therefore these desktops come with everything and the kitchen sink integrated, which might look as bloat, but doesn't necessarily have to be bloat.
2. Those desktops are not aimed at low-spec machines, they are aimed at modern PCs with specs that are somewhat standard at any given time. For a standard PC nowadays this means 2-4 cores, 4-8GB of RAM. Seeing that a full blown KDE desktop on a dual-core system with 4GB of RAM needs about 500MB to work is hardly what I would call bloat (1/8th of the available RAM), when you consider the offered functionality, even more when you go up in the specs. On my now middleclass six-core machine with 16GB of RAM the KDE desktop needs about 650MB, 1/25th of the available RAM.

@Linuxgamer: When both, Ubuntu 14.04 and Mint 17 crash on you, despite using different DEs, it is likely that the fault is not the DE, but the underlying system, probably a bug in one of the drivers or the kernel.

OMG! it is soooooo the user's fault!
1. when you use something as an "appliance", you don't have a bloated OS! I was product manager for lines like Sonic Wall, Lucent, and channel manager at Allied Telesis and Cisco, back in the day, all which had "appliances", and I can tell you, the OS in such appliances is rather small compared to this! Using this as an appliance? I don't think so!
2. perhaps you are buying brand new hex-core computers, paying for the new OS that comes with it, and trashing that with Linux, but that is not what most people are doing. Most people are fed up with update bloat and crashes, and trashing that for Linux. Winproblems is what get people into Linux, meaning that there is a majority of users who convert from aged machines. Perhaps not as aged as an eeePC, but aged nonetheless.
The argument about memory doesn't quite float, because if new machines are all coming out with 16GB of RAM, that only means that for all those machines with 4GB, using up 1/8th of that isn't giving you much of a lifetime with that computer. We all know that as you add stuff, and as programs become larger, that isn't much.
Don't get me wrong: I would still use Mint, and enthusiastically so, on a machine with 4GB of RAM - no hesitation at all. But I made a statement that there is not a slimmed version for the older computers. It's easy to do, apparently. You just have to make lots fo the unusedware optional.

Fixed!

Huh, where did I say that?
I think you have misunderstood me. When I say that people use computers as an appliance I don't mean the computers have the functionally or OS of a network router or other network appliances, but that they don't care about the underlying OS and GUI, as long as the OS/GUI is offering the wanted functionality. The computer as a black box that has to work reliably, with minimum maintenance and maximum functionality.
The standards with functions a modern desktop/laptop has to offer are mostly set by Windows and OS X, users new to Linux will compare and demand similar functionality.
This CPU is from 2010, you can hardly call that brand new.
I built my machines myself, but indeed, I have paid for all my Windows copies.
That you are fed up with Windows does not necessarily mean that you have an old machine.
You are right. But with Moore's Law in place that is not something that really should be surprising.
Try the XFCE or MATE editions, they should be much lighter than than the Cinnamon and KDE editions.

LOL funny guy. I didn't even know that the old signature was still showing. Should I change it? if yes, what to?

@Tobi: it just seemed like you were piling on to me for bringing up the gool old days when Linux was smaller than Windoze - now it seems like they are using these high-level languages that just sprawl out the code like everyone else. But hey, I get it, if you are developing for the new machines, and the processor cores and RAM are there, why not, right?
My 9 year old daughter is ticked pink with Bohdi on the old eeePC netbook - not trying to plug it - just saying - 128MB of RAM needed, 1 or 2 GB of RAM in the netbook - works for me. I tried the Mint XFCE on it first - it just took too long to load in comparison. but thanks anyway for the suggestion.

Misconceptions everywhere.

I run Guydog on a 128MB Kodak Camera SD card,
http://forums.solydxk.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=1858

Mint and Ubuntu do not define gnu/linux. Besides. I can download a minimal ubuntu iso and install fluxbox and a terminal on it and run it on a older box.
Linux is still smaller than Windows. At least in my world.

site on web?

btw: http://postimg.org/image/xo8449y2n/

The link to the thread is in my 1st post in my posted link here.
I might try out Slitaz next if I find another small card in another broke camera.

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=tinycore

http://www.linuxscreenshots.org/?rel...05.3%20Fluxbox