I’ve discovered Akonadi, a KDE service. As far as I could understand, Akonadi provides “personal information management” and is responsible for some interaction between apps within the KDE ecosystem. To me, it seems to be bloatware. Somebody may use the functions it provides, but I do not. It is just running in background all the time with no use.

  1. How do I completely disable it forever?
  2. Have you ever met something else in Linux or it’s ecosystem, that appeared to be bloatware to you (and how did you disable it)?
  • pixeldaemon@sh.itjust.worksOP
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    19 hours ago

    I may appear paranoic, but it’s collecting metadata from contacts and email. Even though it does not sell anything, that’s not the thing I’d like to have running on my PC. And since I don’t even use most of the apps Akonadi is designed for, it is just wasting my CPU time and RAM space. That’s why I call it bloatware. And it’s shipped preinstalled on Fedora. Another reason is that there’s no way to manage it with KDE system settings. Why on earth I can’t manage a KDE utility with the settings of KDE? Why hiding it so deep I can’t find a bare notice of it without looking into htop or config files? It isn’t that crucial for the system to be hidden so deep.

    • Hund@feddit.nu
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      18 hours ago

      And since I don’t even use most of the apps Akonadi is designed for, it is just wasting my CPU time and RAM space. That’s why I call it bloatware.

      You can’t just make up your own meanings of already established words and terms. That’s simply not how the world works.

      And if you don’t use it, why did you choose to install it in the first place?

      • pixeldaemon@sh.itjust.worksOP
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        18 hours ago

        My definition matches the definition given in the Collins Dictionary. If you don’t consider this a serious source, just accept I may not be always aware of a precise meaning of a certain term.

        I did not choose to install Akonadi. It was preinstalled in Fedora KDE. I chose KDE for its extensive customization. Maybe I’m too old /j, but by choosing a DE I’m choosing just a DE. I couldn’t even think about how extensive an ecosystem around a DE could be. There are useful tools, like KDE Connect, which are meaningful to me and can be configured straightforwardly, but Akonadi is neither something I missed, nor it has an accessible configuration.

        • Hund@feddit.nu
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          17 hours ago

          My definition matches the definition given in the Collins Dictionary.

          I looked it up and found this:

          pre-installed computer software with an excessive number of unnecessary features and, often, unnecessarily high memory and disc space requirements

          https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/bloatware

          Is there another dictionary named Collins that you read?

          I did not choose to install Akonadi. It was preinstalled in Fedora KDE.

          It looks like you choose a Linux based operating system that seems to includes a fairly complete stack of the KDE suit.

          (I don’t know much about Fedora)

          I chose KDE for its extensive customization.

          I bet that Fedora have a minimal version without a graphical stack, which would let you to only install the Plasma desktop environment and the parts of the KDE suit you find relevant for you.

          And I’m sure that it’s possible to strip down a current setup with Fedora and the KDE suit as well.

          Maybe I’m too old /j, but by choosing a DE I’m choosing just a DE.

          That’s the issue here, you didn’t choose just a desktop environment (Plasma Desktop) you choose a, more or less, complete suit of software (KDE). :)

        • Micromot@piefed.social
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          17 hours ago

          It is just something needed for synching calendar and contact information between KDE services, if you have no application that does this, akonadi is not started in the first place… The calendar events in the default panel clock is one of these and can be disabled in its settings as another commenter mentioned

    • smiletolerantly@awful.systems
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      15 hours ago

      It’s just a helper. It’s a way for your calendar to ask “uhhh… Should I already know of any calendars…?” and the service going “oh actually yeah, the user configured their email account, hold on, here’s the corresponding calendar”.

      That’s just basic functionality. Maybe what’s tripping you up is that it’s a separate service? Because I assume you have nothing against inputting your email into a mail client and a calendar separately.

      If so, then for one, it’s not really a difference if the mail app stores this into or the service does; and second, it’s a good thing to have this standardized into a single purpose built service, rather than having each app reimplement this stuff.

      CPU and RAM usage is so negligible it’s laughable.

      IDK.

      It seems like you read something about personal data in the service description and just jumped to the conclusion that this is something nefarious.

      • pixeldaemon@sh.itjust.worksOP
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        9 hours ago

        I know what it is, that’s why I’m so sure I don’t need it for my tasks. The disturbing thing is of course not the data storage itself, but its movement accross my system. I’m okay with having social media accounts, but I’m not okay with shit like TikTok (don’t use it though, just an example) knowing each of my contacts from Signal or whatever, or the browser knowing what I’ve planned for August 16 at 04:40 PM in my calendar. I want user apps to minimally interchange any kind of data. Why would I ever use Linux if not to have control over this?

        The CPU and RAM usage might be negligible, but only until there’s only one or two services like this. And I don’t think that a service, that I don’t use at all in any way, should occupy any amount of my RAM.