Name Your Favorite Bloat-Free Software

An anonymous reader writes "I prefer software that takes as little hard drive space and RAM as possible. I can't stand bloated software like iTunes, as compared to Foobar or classic Winamp; or Windows Media Player, as compared to VLC or Media Player Classic. What are some of your favorite applications which are a little less bloated?"

Comments

Oh!

[c0l0]

Now that one's easy! `ed`. It's the standard editor for a reason, after all.

Re:Oh!

[Anonymous Coward]

I like copy con, myself.

Re:Oh!

[eln]

ed is a bloated mess! It's 47K for god's sake! I use cat for all of my text editing needs. At a lean 19k, it's far more efficient than ed. Hell, if you're comfortable with that much bloat, you might as well just use emacs. At least then you get an operating system included.

As for general favorite bloat-free software, I'd have to go with /usr/bin/yes. Often I find myself needing something to tell me I'm correct about a tough decision, or to provide me motivation to do something, or just for some general personal validation. For that and more, I trust yes. Sure, some people would use more unsure methods such as researching problems, talking to themselves in a mirror, or taking action to better themselves. I'm not much of a gambler though, and I don't like to sweat. So, I use yes. Yes always gives me the answer I need, as many times as I need to hear it. Yes is the perfect solution to life's problems. Take for example the following conversation with yes:

Should I buy that new sports car I've had my eye on? y
Am I really a good person, even after all those felonies? y
Should I have another beer? y
Am I sober enough to drive? y
Do you love me? y
Oh yes, you little scamp, I love you too! y
y
y
y
y
y
y
y
y
^C

Re:Oh!

[ArsonSmith]

I don't know, EMACS stands for 8 megs and constantly swapping. Eight Freaking Megs!!!! No editor should be that large. I mean my god what does it do? Check email?

Re:Oh!

[fm6]

Pity Homer Simpson didn't know about yes.

Re:Oh!

[dknj]

8 megs for an operating system is pretty small...

Re:Oh!

[Just Some Guy]

I use cat for all of my text editing needs.

Freakin' wastrel! That's why they made ">". Not vim. Not ed. Not cat. ">".

$ > eln.txt
Hi, I like swap!
^D

"cat". Hrmph.

Re:Oh!

[vonsneerderhooten]

All of this editor zealotry is too much for me.

I'll settle it once and for all.

Notepad is best.
/ducks

Re:Oh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Pfft. I'm waiting for Apple to release iYes. Who cares that yes is tiny and does its job well? It still needs to be simplified as only Apple can. Hopefully they can add some magic playlists in there as well, and maybe throw in a little DRM for good measure.

My machine is quad core and has 1.5TB of disk and 4GB of RAM so I think it can be safely assumed that everyone else does too...and that every application should assume it can have all of it. I mean, it's time to take these command-line utils into the modern age.

I'm also looking for the iTrue replacement for /bin/true, as it desperately needs a GUI. And by God the fucker better be set to load into memory at start-up because I don't want to have to wait for truth.

Re:Oh!

[mcpkaaos]

While I agree that Notepad is a powerful editor, I feel that Wordpad's ability to underline text on the same line edges it out for the extreme programmer. Plus, you can write your release notes in Wingdings.

Re:Oh!

[Borealis]

That's huge! Nobody should ever need more than 640k.

Re:Oh!

[Garridan]

Weird. I read, "any self-replicating unix admin"... and I just pictured a /etc/passwd file rapidly filling the hard drive. But then, I realize -- if unix admins don't self-replicate, how else would they reproduce? The /etc/passwd file doesn't fill up, because they force their progeny to buy their own damned boxen.

Oh yeah. Back on topic, I think that the Storm Worm is an excellent example of bloat-free software. While it's been under very active development, it doesn't use too much memory or take up much space, and really performs very well. Two thumbs up to the Storm Worm people. Awesome stuff. Now... let's see how fast it can factor Mersenne numbers!

Re:Oh!

[devnulljapan]

I'd have to go with /usr/bin/yes. Often I find myself needing something to tell me I'm correct about a tough decision, or to provide me motivation to do something, or just for some general personal validation. For that and more, I trust yes.

George? Is that you?

Re:Oh!

[Just Some Guy]

I think I need to take a shower, and not for smelly Unix hacker reasons.

Re:Oh!

[alx5000]

How and why would you use more instead of ed??

Re:Oh!

[MattPat]

yes is indeed handy, but it's not really practical for life applications.

I'm currently in the process of writing no. It should fill the gap just perfectly. :)

Make sure you check out next year's software lineup though-- I hear a patent has been filed for maybe.

Re:Oh!

[Em Adespoton]

Obviously when he wants to just read the document and not edit it. More or less gets the job done.

Re:Oh!

[GPL Apostate]

One of our adult cats weighs 3-1/2 pounds. (and she's actually the 'alpha')

Bonzi Buddy

[Anonymous Coward]

Bonzi Buddy

Re:Bonzi Buddy

[Oktober Sunset]

true, it saves so much resources. Normally, you would need 3 different programs to annoy the shit out of you, destroy your computer and constantly spy on you, but Bonzi Buddy does all 3 in one.

Apple II

[nacturation]

] call -151
* 300: ad 30 c0 20 ed fd 4c 00 03
* 300g

Hours of random entertainment!

tee

[gus goose]

tee. Only two command-line options.

The way it should be. It's name is it's documentation too.

gus

Re:Lynx?

[nacturation]

Who needs the bloat of Lynx when you can telnet to port 80?

My list

[starrsoft]

Here's my list: OpenOffice, e-Sword, Firefox, Google Desktop, TightVNC, Thunderbird, Picasa, AVG Anti-Virus, GIMP, IrfanView, VLC Media Player, FileZilla, 7zip

Stupid lame filter nuked my <ul>

Only one choice for me!

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows Vista.

Regards,
Steve Ballmer

Re:Lynx?

[Nick of NSTime]

the only good thing about slashdot is the comments! You must be new here.

Re:memtest86

[dgym]

Are you kidding? That thing used up all my memory.

Phoenix

[renelicious]

I used to use a great browser call Phoenix, that was light and fast. Then it changed its name and changed its name again. I still use it because its still the best browser and by far my favorite, however I have trouble calling it light and fast these days.

Re:Opera

[Chris Burke]

Hmm... I find your recommendation insufficient.

Re:Oh! - I love this quote

[kwabbles]

"Of course, on the system *I* administrate, vi is symlinked to ed.
Emacs has been replaced by a shell script which 1) Generates a syslog
message at level LOG_EMERG; 2) reduces the user's disk quota by 100K;
and 3) RUNS ED!!!!!!"

Re:Lynx?

[SQLGuru]

We all know Slashdot isn't for reading TFAs.....so if it isn't the comments and it isn't the articles, then it must be because of CowboyNeal.

Layne

Re:MS Paint

[Orestesx]

HIM: "I really like MS Paint for screenshots."
YOU: "MS Paint sucks. Buy a new computer so you can take screenshots more easily"

Re:AbiWord FTW

[Stroman Rebar]

I was always more a fan of Abby Winters myself...

The Answer:

[Weaselmancer]

How many programs for Windows have existed almost unchanged for as long as Windows has existed.

The kernel. *rimshot*

Thanks, I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

I'm stil here...

[thegnu]

or 2GB, in outlook.
(I know I got modded troll, offtopic, and lame for this the other day)