There is more to size than storage space. Larger applications take more memory, more cpu caches; things spill over to normal memory, latencies grow and everything runs much slower
For practical purposes given more than enough RAM and fast storage there is no meaningful user discernible performance differences between a 500Mb OS and a 30GB OS.
Whereas very small linux distros are useful in several areas like containers and limited hardware running such on the desktop is an objectively worse experience and is moreso a minimalism fetish than a useful strategy.
> (..) there is no meaningful user discernible performance differences between a 500Mb OS and a 30GB OS.
I call BS. A small single board computer I have, came with 8 GB of RAM. Not esoecially big or small. 500 MB would fit into this, comfortably. Leaving ~7.5GB for apps. Load everything into RAM once, run from there. RAM bandwith is ~8.5GB/s.
30 GB wouldn't fit. So: swap everything in & out using a (cheapish) SSD over a x1 PCIe lane. Or (more common) from an SD card / eMMC module. Think ~100 MB/s on a good day. That's with apps competing for the memory crumbs left.
That's a ~85x factor difference. 2 orders of magnitude. Yes users would notice.
Sure, developer with fully decked out system doesn't see this. Or even understand it. But:
Size matters.
Note: smartphones, tablets etc are not unlike that SBC. And flash storage tends to be on the low-end side where speed is concerned. Desktop you say? Nope, smartphones & tablets are where it's at these days.
michaelmrose|9 months ago
Whereas very small linux distros are useful in several areas like containers and limited hardware running such on the desktop is an objectively worse experience and is moreso a minimalism fetish than a useful strategy.
RetroTechie|9 months ago
I call BS. A small single board computer I have, came with 8 GB of RAM. Not esoecially big or small. 500 MB would fit into this, comfortably. Leaving ~7.5GB for apps. Load everything into RAM once, run from there. RAM bandwith is ~8.5GB/s.
30 GB wouldn't fit. So: swap everything in & out using a (cheapish) SSD over a x1 PCIe lane. Or (more common) from an SD card / eMMC module. Think ~100 MB/s on a good day. That's with apps competing for the memory crumbs left.
That's a ~85x factor difference. 2 orders of magnitude. Yes users would notice.
Sure, developer with fully decked out system doesn't see this. Or even understand it. But:
Size matters.
Note: smartphones, tablets etc are not unlike that SBC. And flash storage tends to be on the low-end side where speed is concerned. Desktop you say? Nope, smartphones & tablets are where it's at these days.
datadrivenangel|9 months ago