Finding application size in linux (Mint Xfce)

[JackintheGreen]

OK, so I'm trying to pare down the excess on my netbook for maximum efficiency. I still consider myself relatively new to Linux. I used the Dell distro of Ubuntu for nearly two years, but I did so out of the box without any mods because I was in the field in rural south India and had very unreliable access to the internet. I could futz around much with the system because I couldn't risk borking it. Prior to that I played around with an old Gentoo distro on an even older Lenovo something or other I found in the trash.

I've recently switched to LinuxMint 8.0 Xfce and am actually trying to learn my way around the system. I'm dumping useless apps (like the CD burner and most of the Open Office utilities) and trying to streamline necessary functions: browsing, email, word processing, etc.

Right now I am using Thunderbird 2.0 and Firefox 3.5.9, but I have to imagine that there are leaner programs. Like maybe Sylpheed for email or Chrome/Chromium as a browser. Or Seamonkey as a suite. (I know Abi is smaller than OO, but my research requires me to use certain foreign characters that seem unsupported in Abi and OO does them just fine).

So how do I find the app size of any of these on system? How big is Firefox? The download is 9.4MB, but is that the package or the installed app? Thunderbird 3.0 is 10.9MB. But Seamonkey is 13MB for email/browser/IRC combined (except I'm not really impressed by it). If these are not sizes of apps as installed, how do I find them? And how do I find the comparable sizes of Sylpheed or Chrome or any of the others?

And here's and even dumber question: when I bought this thing I got it with 16GB of RAM. I know this for certain, because just before I switched I had 11.6GB used. After the switch all I can find is a single ATA STEC PATA 8GB SCSI disk, 60% which is already used up with OS/apps/and a few docs. What gives? I can no longer be certain of set-up specs under the old OS, but I KNOW I had 11.6GB of 16 used up. Now its 2.57 of 6.69 (the remainder of the 8 is used by the OS, right). I guess I could unscrew the bottom and make sure that I had two 8GB disks and I'm not just completely misremembering, except that I *KNOW* I had used 11.6GB: I'd been trying to rid myself of months of field bloat for weeks before I went to Mint.

OK, that's all. Any help? Thanks, y'all!

[pokerfan]

1. try fslint

it's in the repository

[BadgerKid]

2. Since Mint is based on Ubuntu,

I guess the dpkg command might be available to you. I googled for "dpkg size of installed" and got this thread:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=599424

Take a look at post #2 and see if that helps any.

[JackintheGreen]

5. Thanks. This is a gem!

' course, I don't know what it all means yet, but I'll figure it out.

:toast:

[RoyGBiv]

3. This isn't an easy question ...

It's difficult to give a straightforward answer. The size of an application isn't merely the size of the executable file that starts the app itself. You also have to include all the direct support files, all of which are generally included in the "package." Installed, the Firefox package in Linux is about 36.5 MB. However, that's not the entire story either. Firefox has dependencies, which is true of all applications. A dependency is another file (library, executable, etc.) required for another application to run properly. Now, I'd list all the dependencies required for Firefox, but that'd take up way too much space here, so I'll just say that there's a lot of them. Some of these dependencies can be separate packages in and of themselves, some of them have their own, separate dependencies.

One thing about dependencies is that other applications you have installed may use them as well, e.g. a shared library or a plugin like Flash. Or, they may not. Whichever, they aren't consider part of the size of the Firefox package itself.

It is easily possible to install one, very small application and end up installing dozens of megabytes of additional software.

On top of all this, you can have (and do in the case of Firefox) user configuration and data files. My user directory for Firefox is 94MB. This goes up and down as I clear the cache, add or remove extensions, etc.

All in all, Firefox takes up about 120MB on my system, but this will vary with individual systems. (I'm also actively beta testing the next release, so that adds to it.)

BUT, this isn't a problem.

I also have Chrome, Opera, Konqueror, and Lynx web browsers installed on my system. Each individual application may be faster or more efficient than another, but it doesn't make my *system* less efficient in any practical way to have all of them installed and wouldn't unless my hard drive were getting full. I have a 20 GB partition where all the packages in my system are installed, and I still have 11GB free. I have hundreds of applications installed, large ones, including games and a lot of testing and modeling stuff.

Feh ... I haven't explained this very well and have probably confused you. I'm having trouble myself just wrapping my head around what you're trying to do, which is part of my problem here. The link offered in BadgerKid's post will take you to several ways to get a list of the packages and which are bigger. But, as you look at the list keep what I've said here in mind.

OnEdit:

Let me give you a simple example of how comparing applications in the way you're trying to do is so difficult.

The executable for the text-based web browser Lynx is 1.4 MB.
The executable for the full-featured Firefox is 51 KB.

However, Firefox has megabytes worth of support files and a lot of dependencies. Lynx is far more self-contained with very few dependencies.

[JackintheGreen]

4. On the contrary

reading your trying to think through an answer response has been illuminating. It's true that it hasn't answered my question, per se, but it given me a new way to conceptualize it. But you seem to have missed a key point og the post: it's a netbook, and it's not got a lot of memory.

So, on my 8GB PATA drive, I am already using 5.7GB. Now, I don't use it for video, or audio, or even photo manipulation and storage. I only use it for documents/email/browsing since it is but a wee netbook. But it is AWESOME for fieldwork in India. Still, I would feel better with more free memory, even though a years worth of field notes only used 1G, and I have over 2G left.

I guess what I need to look for is a browser and emailer with fewer dependencies. If I get rid of Firefox and Thunderbird now, I'll still have time to sort out which dependencies I need for other apps. Do I have this right?

And your user directory for Firefox is 94 MB; where would I find mine? "~/usr/bin/"? (Sorry, I don't have it in front of me and am working on a Windows system at the mo'). If that is the right direction, I can figure out the nuances, i think. But if I'm in the wrong subdirectory entirely, well....

OK, then. A simpler question, maybe? How do I figure out the "ultimate" size of an app based on all its required dependencies? Is it possible to figure out which apps are sprawling, like Firefox and I assume Thunderbird, and which are more self contained, like Lynx? Would that be a way to sort this out in the short term?

[RoyGBiv]

6. Netbook ...

Last thing first: Your Firefox user directory in Linux is:

~/.mozilla

Note the "." prior to mozilla. Within that will be your profile, an initialization file, and in the profile will be extensions, user data, bookmarks, etc.

OnEdit: You can find the amount of space your user profile is consuming by opening a terminal, then issuing these commands:

cd .mozilla

du -h

In English, that's change the active directory to .mozilla.

Find disk usage (du) and display it in a human readable format (-h). The latter will result in a listing of all the subdirectories in .mozilla and out beside it the space taken up by those directories. At the very end will be a total for all of it.

Example:



Note that I have the Firefox extension Scrapbook installed, which I use to take snapshots of entire webpages, graphics and all. That's the main reason my user directory is so big. Note I've added 9 MB to it since last night. :)

Anyway, I didn't miss the bit about a netbook and limited space exactly. I'm just not quite understanding what you're saying, and I forgot to address it more directly. Your comments here provide me with a bit more insight into what's causing the confusion.

You said in your initial post that you believe you had 16GB of RAM. That's a LOT of RAM. RAM (Random Access Memory) is the "memory" in your system. Not many people have desktops with that much. I've never seen a "netbook" with that much. In fact I haven't seen one with more than 4GB. Most have 1 or 2. But, I gather you're confusing RAM for hard drive space. However, I also haven't seen a netbook for sale recently with less than an 80GB hard drive, so I'm still a bit confused here.

Question: Is this genuinely a "netbook" or is it an old notebook/laptop? These I realize are generally marketing terms and don't have concrete definitions, but netbooks are a fairly recent development in the portable computer market. They all used to be called laptops or notebooks, the latter generally being smaller/thinner than what would be called a laptop. Netbooks are smaller still, tend to have smaller hard drives and less memory than a standard laptop and have small (up to around 10 inches) display screen.

Just taking this at face value, whatever you actually have, it seems you have 8GB of hard drive space to work with, which makes all this more understandable. You're trying to squeeze everything -- applications and data -- within 8GB of storage space. Is that about correct?

I don't think you're going to find an efficient way to do the kind of side by side size comparison you're wanting to do. (The commands in BadgerKid's post are going to be the way to allow you to do that eventually.) If you get bogged down in trying to figure out which application takes up more space than another with all its dependencies, user files, etc. you're going to end up with a huge headache and, in the end, probably not be able to save any more space than a few megabytes, if that. A lot of the dependencies required for Firefox, for example, are going to be required for any web browser with a graphical user interface (GUI). Lynx is small and has few dependencies precisely because it doesn't have a GUI and offers no support for displaying digital images, advanced HTML formatting, etc.

ANYWAY ...

I'll just offer some straight advice. Since your space is so limited, you should think outside of simply choosing individual applications for each task. Since storage space is such a consideration here, I would suggest you use Google Chrome. (Installed, the Chrome executable is currently 41M. It has slightly fewer dependencies than Firefox.) Your space saving with this browser over Firefox is negligible, but it has an advantage in your situation in that it interfaces very well with Google Docs. You could, in other words, avoid using OpenOffice and just use Google Docs and save all that space taken by OpenOffice.

For e-mail, does you e-mail provider offer a web interface, e.g. GMail, Yahoo, and even most ISP e-mail offer a web-based client. When space is a concern, you can just log into your e-mail via your web browser. If that's not an option, you could also consider a text-based e-mail client like pine. Or, go with something like Evolution. Thunderbird is a full-featured e-mail client built to compare with Outlook, meaning it's got a lot of crap with it most people never use. I like it, but it is quite a big package, and since space is a concern, you might be better server going another route.

[JackintheGreen]

8. with egg on my face and joy in my heart

Yes,of course I meant 16GB SSD, not RAM. Believe it or not, I do know the difference, but you were right to point out the mistake and clarify. It appears, of course, that I only have an 8GB SSD, but I swear before I switched from 'buntu to Mint that my disk usage analyzer showed 11.3GB of 16GB occupied. It doesn't make any difference to you if I'm blowing smoke or just crazy, but the difference is driving me nuts!

That said...

It is a real, honest to gosh netbook: Gen 1 Dell Mini-note, 9". I got it for size and simplicity just before I left for fieldwork in India because the idea of humping around some hulking desktop replacement made me slightly ill. Also, Dell had a hell of a deal going before release to try to generate interest in their Eee-killer. Point is, it's a "netbook."

I have considered Chrome, or some variation of cloud computing via PeppermintOS/EasyPeasy/Moblin/Jolicloud. Here's my concern-cum-problem: where I work in India there is unreliable internet access at the best of times. I can almost always find a desktop with a hardwired connection, but they can be costly or just plain inconvenient to use. With thunderbird (and you're right...it has a ton of features that I never use, but I really disliked Evolution and was familiar with Thunderbird) I can download/upload a week's worth of email in a trice and then read it and answer it offline at my leisure. While this process does use up memory, it does so on a permanent cycle. Very little gets kept longer than a week.

The same for google docs. I've never tried to use it offline, though I understand that you can. The idea makes me nervous, though, and I *like* OO. But more importantly, I need to use several specialized fonts for that Abiword simply cannot render (and it's developers admit as much) and I suspect that GoogleDocs is the same way. On limited function word processors, fonts typically are one of the first things to get dropped. And rightly so. If all my work could be done in Times New Roman, I'd be on the cloud in a second (and yes, I know that most cloud OS offer the option of using offline apps). But I'd hate to be using something and realize that I cannot complete some task because some required function can only be done with an internet connection. Over-cautious? Perhaps. But so far it's a stance that has worked for me. Besides, Xfce is pretty small, and much faster than 'buntu. I suppose LXDE might be even smaller, and Fluxbox certainly would be, but I had to make certain concessions to avoid borking my system in the field.

My university did migrate to MS/hotmail (Yargh! You idiots!!! Even Temple migrated to Gmail.), so I always have mail online, but as noted above, I don't always have online. When I have an hour or two worth of email to deal with (friends, family, research advisors), doing so online is slightly more than inconvenient. Maybe I'll try Evolution again, or Seamonkey's smaller suite footprint, but even Seamonkey has apps I won't use (IRC and development apps).

Anyway, this is likely way more than you care to know. Thank you so much for your advice, and for putting the command lines into human for me.

Cheers! :toast:

[RoyGBiv]

9. Now it all comes together ...

You have an SSD for storage. Makes more sense now.

Well, you and I actually seem to have similar philosophies concerning the use of online apps, and I suspected you might have issues with access to the network given what you'd said about field work in India. I like Google Docs as a backup system, but I won't go without OO and use that primarily. Same with using a local e-mail client rather than a web based version. It's nice to have that option, but I prefer a dedicated client, and I prefer Thunderbird myself.

I made those suggestions simply in the interest of trying everything possible to reduce your used storage space because, stripped of all the detail, changing from one app to another isn't going to save you all that much. I suspect you could spend a week or so trying out different configurations and end up not saving more than half to 1GB of space. Of course, given your limits, that is significant. It's just going to come down to a trade-off like that of some variety.

Another suggestion I'll offer is for you to acquire a USB stick and use that to save your data, leaving the internal storage device primarily for the system. You can get a 16GB USB stick for around $50 or less, and I think that would pretty much solve your problem of risking running out of room for your data.

[RoyGBiv]

7. Also ...

Part of your space problem may be due to the packages used to install applications still hanging around on the system. The software installer will download these packages, unpack them, install them, and then *not* delete the package unless you tell it to do so. As mentioned, I'm beta testing Firefox's next release, which means I get an update almost every day. When I decided to clean these out, I had 10 separate packages consuming about 120MB all by themselves.

So, after you've installed things and after you do updates, drop to a terminal and run these commands:

sudo apt-get autoremove

sudo apt-get autoclean

The first removes any packages (dependencies) that aren't being used by a software package.

The second then erases all old package files. I did this the other day and freed up about 500MB of space.