I often hear folks in the Linux community discussing their preference for Arch (and Linux in general) because they can install only the packages they want or need - no bloat.
I’ve come across users with a couple of hundred packages installed (likely fresh installs), but I’ve also seen others with thousands.
Personally, I’m currently at 1.7k packages on my desktop and 1.3k on my laptop (both running EndeavourOS). There might be a few packages I could remove, but I don’t feel like my system is bloated.
I guess it’s subjective, but when do you consider a system to be bloated?
I’m asking as a relatively new Linux user - been daily driving for about 7/8 months
When stuff starts to get in your way or there is a performance hit greater than 7-10%.
Snaps are not bloat. Once I take 10 minutes to configure Firefox Snap disabling, it will never annoy me.
If the default software is shit (rarely on Linux), I replace it with better alternatives.
Using adblockers and systemwide HOSTS rules to block trackers/ads/junk/malware domains achieves 70-80% of the performance benefits in 5-10 minutes.
I use Debian 12 stable on computers alongside Windows and am happy.