Linux fat/bloated

[Paul Osman]

On 6-Apr-06, at 10:32 PM, Walter Dnes wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 05, 2006 at 09:30:11AM -0400, Lennart Sorensen wrote
>
>> Actually I think you are entirely wrong.  Linux is so efficient at  
>> the
>> use of memory for shared objects that it only loads one copy no  
>> matter
>> how many programs and users are using it.
>
>   Only one copy of perl, only one copy of python, only one copy of  
> PHP,
> only one copy of QT, only one copy of GTK, only one copy of Java, only
> one copy of Ruby... etc, etc.  *THAT IS THE PROBLEM*.

There's a very simple solution to that problem: don't install  
applications that depend on these things. That's what emerge -- 
pretend is for. What you're complaining about is a bit of a  
contradiction... it seems you want a lot of applications (I assume  
this is why you're pulling in these dependencies) but you don't want  
programmers to have a lot of choices... those choices (Ruby, Perl,  
Python, etc) are precisely the reason that there are so many  
applications for you to use. Solution: either only install  
applications with light dependencies, or suck it up and enjoy all  
those apps you like. You'll need python on perl at the very least  
(perl is so ubiquitous and well, portage is written in python) but  
they really don't take up *that* much space.

-Paul
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