Kamil Paral wrote:
Yet you're one of the few people caring about the KDE spin, where
major
applications are duplicated or triplicated.There are 3 different web
browsers(!), 2 different package managers, 2 file managers.
I am not the one who makes the decisions on what goes on the Spin. The
refusal to drop Firefox long ago was actually the main reason (though only
one out of several) why I stopped acting as the de-facto maintainer of the
live kickstart. And these days, Falkon is undisputedly completely
production-ready and Firefox simply has no business being there. So do not
blame me.
The main issue the KDE SIG has is that there is often disagreement on what
the default application should actually be, so the SIG often opts for the
path of least resistance, which is to simply ship both, even if it means
repeatedly getting complaints like yours. (I am also unhappy about the
bloat.)
One issue is that the KDE Spin often has an application optimized for
beginners and one optimized for power users, see:
* Discover vs. Dnfdragora,
* Dolphin vs. Krusader,
etc. And both have their user base which will complain if you remove their
preferred choice. (I basically never use Discover and Dolphin.)
By the way, there are actually 3 file managers if you also count Konqueror's
file management mode.
Just pruning the apps list would make a bigger difference than any
compression algorithm can.
Not necessarily in all cases, if you consider that Konqueror is just a thin
shell around the KWebEnginePart (which is itself just a thin wrapper around
the QtWebEngine that Falkon also uses) and the DolphinPart (which is what
Dolphin also uses). Other duplicates such as Firefox (vs. the QtWebEngine
browsers) and the Discover/Dnfdragora duality are a bigger problem, because
they share little to no code.
It would also make sense to create a specific spin that is targeted
at
near-zero-bandwidth group, containing just the bare-bone system essentials
and letting them install just the stuff they need, saving on bandwidth and
time. If we want to care about these users, I believe this is a much
better strategy, with much better gains for them, than discussing a few
percent change in compression type.
This is kinda what I did with Kannolo (which is unfortunately stuck at 27,
because my time is limited and nobody else offered any help). Kannolo also
has a feature called "hybrid netinstall" where you can actually have the
installer (Calamares) install the optional packages for you (on top of the
installed live image, whereas Anaconda only allows EITHER live OR net
installs), though of course that feature is also only useful with a certain
minimum bandwidth.
Kevin Kofler