installed disc usage for LO

users
#1

I was changing versions of LibreOffice and saw something that I am wondering at.

I ran "sudo apt-get remove libreoffice?" and at one point the process asked to continue showing that 896 MB will be freed.

This was the 64 bit DEB version of 5.3.6.

Since I was not "purging" LO, I thought that figure was a little high, but this was the first time I looked at the space being freed up before installing the next version.

#2

Hi,

As an FYI, on Fedora 25, the 64-bit version of 5.4.4-2 comes in at
879MB (result of the command "dnf erase libreoffice*" for a
French/English installation with local help in both languages
installed). Interestingly, LO 5.4.4.2 on my Windows 10 platform (64-
bit, VmWare WS player 14) uses 550MB of disk space (size reported by
right click -> Properties on the installation folder in Program Files).

On the other hand, MS-Office on that same Windows platform has a disk
footprint of slightly over 3 GB.

Happy New Year!

Rémy Gauthier.

#3

I hoped that my figure of 896 MB was not out of the norm.

I know many people might not get why people are concerned with the installed size of the packages.  They figure that you could just add a larger drive to the laptop or another drive [2nd or 3rd] to the desktop. My newest laptop came with a 1TB drive. The one I am typing from has 500GB.  I have seen a number of 2TB laptop drives for under $100. I have seen larger, as well, but between the price and the heat issues, these larger ones may not be best for low to mid level laptops. Also some people have had trouble getting a desktop to boot up from a drive larger than 2TB. Desktops uses one boot disk 2TB or smaller, and then add the 3, 4, or larger data drives.  Not an option for laptops.

NOW, after that you can see there are limits for laptops for drive size.

For me, I notice my laptops get down to under 20 GB free very quickly.  I have to have a USB 2TB drive [military grade] on hand to off load data files so I can continue to do "my thing".  Then I have to try to find room in my data storage desktop for them.  Of course, I have an old style PATA drive for boot and three 2TB drives installed with maybe maybe 100 GB left between the 4 drives.  There is no more room in the case and I had to rig up a lot of fans to keep it cool enough to work. Of course for whatever reason it crashes every time I try to install Ubuntu 16.04. OK, that is a pet peeve.

Of course, if you grew up before the PC was invented, or before there was an Internet, you will know how I feel about all these "new technologies" came out.

"on the other hand" - I remember having to install Adobe packages and MS Office on a 50-80 gig hard drives at a computer work area. Of course, how many of you remember having to install Windows via floppy discs - twelve if I am correct - on desktops with no CD drive [before I was allowed to add a temporary CD drive to use for the installs].

#4

And yet somehow, WordPerfect and Lotus 123 only took up 2mb of my 10mb hard
disk (that was 1990)...

#5

Yes, I remember that. A friend was harassed for buying a 10 MB drive since they thought he would never need that much internal storage. Those dual floppy days, and the first 10 to 20 MB hard drives, were the good old days for the "personal computer".  I had to create printer drivers for various word processors to get PC-Write and WordPerfect to print correctly on dot-matrix printers. I worked with a small DEC mainframe back then. A few years later I was writing a RPG programming editor - designed to make sure you get the command codes in the correct columns.

#6

My first hard drive was 30 MB. I also used PC-Write at home. I used
Wordstar 2000 & Word Perfect at work. I also maintained mini-computer
systems, including DEC VAX 11/780.

#7

A complete install of the most popular grammar checker for LibreOffice
--- Language Tool --- requires (rounded down) 38 GB.

One of the Gallery extensions uses a GB of disk space.

jonathon

#8

When my father ordered his first computer, he ordered a 10 mg. hard
drive. When he received it, it had a 20 mg. hard drive. They explained
that the 10 mg. had become obsolete since he ordered it and gave him a
20 mg. at no additional cost. He thought he had died and gone to PC heaven.

I also used PC-Write, both at home and at work. I worked as a lawyer and
wrote all of my legal documents and court briefs using that wonderful
little shareware program.

Obviously, LO can do much, much more than PC-Write ever could, but I
think it a shame that, after nearly a quarter century of development, my
quad-core laptop running LO on Linux is no faster than my old Toshiba
286 laptop running PC-Write and DOS. Admittedly, I'm comparing text
processing with text processing. I realize that, with graphical
interfaces, networks and Internet, more is required of today's
technology, but I often wonder. In terms of actual productivity -- i.e.,
getting work done, which for me meant word processing and an occasional
spreadsheet -- I was more proficient 25 years ago than I am now.

I recall back in those days reading an article that claimed that DOS
users made better writers than Mac users. The argument was that DOS
users focused on content (that was all they had), whereas Mac users
focused on appearance (since they could). I can relate for, these days,
I spend a lot of time tinkering with fonts, styles, etc., instead of
actually writing.

Virgil

#9

I, too, sometimes get nostalgic for the "heady" old days of computing. I started in the late 70s with hand-coding programs on an Intel 8080 system. I then graduated to CP/M-80 on an S100 Zilog Z80 processor system. I then built my own PC-XT from components in the mid 80s and PC technology has been progressing ever since. I keep a MS-DOS computer around to talk to a device programmer with proprietary DOS-based application software, just in case I need to program an EPROM or PAL chip. I still think the Cromemco Z-80 Macro Assembler which ran on CP/M-80, is the best macro assembler I have ever used, so I created a CP/M-80 Z80 software emulator which runs on my Linux desktop, just in case I have a need to assemble a Z-80 program or maybe run a CP/M-80 program or two. That emulator runs so fast on my desktop that a fairly large assembly is done virtually before I can release the Enter key. Would I go back? Heck no!

BTW: My Linux desktop has a 1TB hard disk and with a ton of large files on it, it is only 20% used. My only concern is backing up so much data each month. I am using 128GB USB Flash sticks, alternating monthly backups (odd and even months) between two 128GB sticks. I can get almost a year's backups from two computers on them. I am awaiting the 256GBs or 512Gbs soon.

Girvin Herr

#10

My first PC was a PC - not XT, or any other letters after the "PC". It had dual floppies for its nearly $1000 cost. Took a few years to get the first hard drive.  PC-DOS, PC-Write, dBase III, and a lot of shareware packages was what I used back then. Took a few years to get a system that did color. Then to get a B&W HP inkjet printer. Then a color inkjet a few years later. I was slow to have money to fund all the upgraded tech I wanted/needed.  Still that way now.

I have a 14 GB collection of fonts. That was how much I was into fonts.

Styles? Well I never really used the "style" options with LO.  It was easier for me to get the "right" look without them.

I still "hand code" using a text editor instead of a GUI package that does a lot of the work for me.  That is how I learned.  That is how I document the code like I was taught to do. Now you get code packets that is hard to understand and almost never documented.  I never learned to create GUI based programs, since the information on what to do and how to do it was not really documented for people who never used it.  So, I no longer try to code for anything that cannot run outside the "Terminal" command window.  That is not to say I do not code HTML, but it uses the browser to do all of the GUI "stuff" for me.

As for writing, well I have not written more than a 10 page document for a while not.  Use to have to do 100+ pages a week for a number of years.  I am glad I no longer need to do that anymore, but not what caused me to stop working, i.e. forced retirement due to medical needs.

#11

i remember renting a ibm 360 /195 system from a corporation. at night to do payroll

RPG.. we needed more disk drive space.  it had 250k drive and we needed a 500k drive
the technician came, opened the drive, removed the metal piece that gave access to the
other 250k already on the drive.. for a price increase of $1450 a month..

#12

I made a lot of international flights in the mid 80's with a Phillips
portable computer. It was badged version of an Osborne, I believe. It
was more of a luggable and weighed a ton - it crippled the shoulder on
anything more than 100 yards walk. I used Wordstar on the CP/M os and
the screen was a very small monochrome crt but it did have dual 5.25"
floppies.

Later, when early pc look-a-likes were available, I actually installed
and tried Windows v1 for an afternoon before uninstalling and dumping
the disks in the wastepaper basket to go back to WordPerfect under DOS.

Those were the days !!
Philip

#13

Hi,

Yes, you are right. But apparently, you can't stop "progress". This
link shows a nice visualization of what this thread has been talking
about (there is also a link at the bottom of the page that connects to
a spreadsheet containing more information).

https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/million-lines-of-code
/

Regards,

Rémy.