 So today I'm going to be asking a question that doesn't really have an answer and can really go either way But I want to talk about it anyways and that question is does package count actually matter So if we take a look at my current system setup, and I'm running open-suicide tumbleweed as part of my challenge and I have a current package count of 3351 packages that is a Literal metric ton of packages now I will be honest with you and I have a ton of stuff installed now first off I'm a Linux youtuber, so I try a lot of applications. I try window managers I try all sorts of things that Contribute to that package count So one of the reasons why my package count is so much higher than a lot of people's is because of that reason also I'm very Not good at removing packages when I'm done with them I oftentimes I'll try something and then it just kind of lingers on there forever and You know it just kind of stays there and I forget about it and tell it eventually causes me problems Which I'll talk about later So the question I have to ask is does that matter does package count matter because there are our two ends of the Spectrum here there are people who like who are like me who have a ton of packages installed Maybe you have more packages than I do maybe you have around the same or you have you have 2000 or 2500 or whatever Or there's people on the other end of spectrum who are very prideful of their minimalism, right? They have you know 500 or 600 or 700 packages installed and that's it And they are very diligent on deleting things that they don't need Uninstalling programs that they don't need and they're very happy and very prideful over the fact that their package count Is very low so the questions I have to ask today First off does package count actually matter and if it does what role does package count actually matter or not? so for example does it actually Make your Linux experience worse to have a ton of packages and the other question that I want to ask today is why does package count seem to Differ based on what distribution you're going to use so that's the one we're gonna actually tackle first What why can I use something like open Suza or Debian and have a significantly higher package count than if I use arch or even fedora and the answer that question is that distributions count packages differently and It seems for pretty obvious when I say it out loud But that's really the bare bones explanation over why package counts can significantly differ on two different distributions So let's pause it a scenario. Surely you're using a brand new version of Debbie and Berkman with Genome installed on it You've just installed it. You have all of the base Genome applications that they install by default and you're you've just turned the computer on for the first time You have a arch based distribution or an arch installation also has Genome installed on it has the exact same Genome packages on installed on it and Functionally besides the fact that one you just pack band and one uses apt and they both use obviously different repositories Functionally, they're exactly the same However, if you were to go in and look at the package counts, you'd find that the Debian system has 17 to 1800 packages installed out of the box Whereas the arch system probably has nearer to 600 or 700 packages installed Why is that a significant difference? Why does that difference actually exist when the systems themselves are functionally the same? Well, it goes back to the simplistic explanation. I just gave Debian counts packages differently than arch does Even though technically they have the same packages installed because Genome's gonna use the same dependencies No matter what distribution you're going to use it on Debian counts dependencies hard and soft dependencies differently and tends to be more Picky over what is actually counted and they also package things in a different way So a lot of things that are a group on Arch and are counted as one package or counted as 10 or 15 packages on Debian And that's just kind of the way they do it. It doesn't mean there's one right way or one wrong way It's just kind of the way it is and that explains why you can run Arch as a more minimal Quote-unquote minimal distro than you can on Debian now you can cut those packages down On Debian, but in my experience the Debian guys are always gonna have a higher package count than Arch Now if you were to just look at the situation on that Explanation alone you would say that package count does not matter because if packages are counted in different ways Then the Debian install of Genome and the Arch install of Genome are equally minimal But the package counts are just kind of there, right? They're exactly the same but the package counts may be different So they therefore don't matter because they're acts actually the same But there's actually more of course to it and that goes to the second question of what Problems come along when you don't care about package count like I don't so if you just go about your Linux Career your Linux install and just install stuff willy-nilly like I do and don't uninstall things that you don't use and it just You keep accruing more and more stuff on your system You're gonna eventually have some problems or at least the potential for problems start to emerge and those problems Usually come to the point where you have to start updating these things So if you frequently update your system the more stuff you have to install The more updates there are going to be the more updates that you have the more likely one of those updates is going to Cause you issues even if you no longer use the program in question and update can come down and cause your system problems This is what's known at least This is one area of what's known as technical debt So the longer you use your machine and don't do the maintenance on it And that means kind of pulling out the crux that just of the stuff that you don't need you're going to start and crewing a lot of technical debt and That debt can come back to haunt you as problems arise simply because it exists now It doesn't mean that you're going to you can have 10,000 packages on your machine and still just use it Oh, you know as for as long as you want to right you could be very lucky and just never encounter a problem or you could have 5,000 packages on your machine and eventually run into problems because of having Applications and libraries and stuff the chapter update and then there's update that points your computer that of course Doesn't mean that the people who are ultra minimal don't also have problems when it comes to Linux So they also have or have the potential to have problems from packages and updates and stuff as well But they are less likely to have one come down because of a major update to some random package There are their problems with updating usually comes from problems with the kernel and base packages that are absolutely Necessary and would affect everyone no matter how many packages they have so does package count Actually matter so the actual number No, I will I'm firmly of the belief that the actual numbers does not matter simply because what distribution you're on You're gonna have a different package count right at the base right those numbers are going to be different because they count Packages differently so the actual number I don't think actually matters because my 3300 packages on open Suza would probably be around 1700 packages on Arch right be about half which would make those systems exactly the same but the packages are The packages counts are going to be different. So The idea there is that the number itself does not matter But accruing a whole bunch of stuff over the course of your usage of your distro your install life of your distro Can be Negative towards your use of Linux over time. It doesn't mean that it will be but it can be it can cause some issues as those updates Keep piling on and your your the config files start adding up and all the libraries keep adding up in the new dependencies And the version numbers and all this stuff kind of start Grinding against each other you can come across a situation where it does cause some problems So what's the solution while the solution is not to pay so much attention to the package count But simply to pay attention to what's installed on your system, especially the things that you install yourself So any packages that you install any Applications that you install that you no longer need uninstall them But that's not always enough you also have to make sure that the things that it installs along with it are also Taking care of so any extraneous dependencies should also be deleted if they can be now I want to be very cautious here because deleting dependencies of applications can be dangerous Because a lot of times when you install something even if it's installed after something else It doesn't mean that things that weren't previously installed don't rely on that new package for some Ungodly reason that happens and when you in uninstall a dependency It may or may not warn you that there's a package somewhere on your system that relies on that dependency And if you delete it things break, right? So you want to be very very cautious over what you actually Delete and uninstall so the best solution for yourself is to Always pay attention to what's being installed on your system when you're done with something if you know You're not going to use it again uninstall it and then try your best to take those dependencies that you no longer need and Delete them now. There are Mechanisms for doing this on every distribution apt has auto remove Pac-man has some flags that you can use to remove unused dependencies zipper does DNF does right? The problem is of course that they oftentimes also remove a lot of stuff that you do need and you want to make sure that when You use those Mechanisms that you read the output before you do any confirmation. Okay, so this is a good example of this Of course is if you go back to the Linus tech tips Linux challenge from I guess it's two years ago now However long it's been one of the first things that Linus did wrong was that he did an auto-remove on PopOS and that actually ended up deleting everything Like everything it deleted, you know, GNOME, it deleted Xorg it deleted everything and Completely borked his system and he had to hop over to Manjaro because he didn't know how to fix it now He could have prevented himself from that mess if he had read the output so always if you're going to use the mechanisms in place to delete packages that were supposedly extraneous read the output know exactly what you're deleting and If it looks like you're deleting something that's important and that you probably still use Just don't delete it because you'd rather have the technical debt of having that thing installed Then uninstalling it and find out that something else relies on it and you've broken your computer So at the end of the day package counts are both not important But are also indicative of a problem that you do have to keep an eye on make sure you're keeping a Thought towards what's on your computer if there's anything there that you can get rid of because over time You're gonna be doing yourself a favor if you know exactly what's there and the fewer things that you have that can break your system on You know any given day probably the better. So that's it for this video if you have thoughts on this You can leave those in the comment section below. I'd love to hear from me if you haven't already give this video a thumbs up I'd really appreciate it. It really does help the channel You can follow me on mass it on our odyssey those links will be in the video description You can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash the Linux cast Thanks to everybody who does support me on patreon and YouTube because they're all absolutely amazing without you the channel Just would not be anywhere near where it is right now. So thank you so very very much for your support. I truly do appreciate it You guys are awesome. Thank you so very much. Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time