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What makes programs like st, zathura, sxiv, and feh load instantly and what makes programs like VS Code and Google Chrome load so slowly in low-spec computers?

For example, I have a low-spec laptop running Linux Mint. And when I execute st, it instantly opens an st instance, but when I execute Google Chrome, it takes a long time to open a Google Chrome instance. What makes st load faster than Google Chrome and what makes Google Chrome load slower than st.

Thank you! :)

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    – gnat
    Commented Jul 26, 2021 at 16:04
  • surely the st home pages explains this in its xterm vs st intro
    – Ewan
    Commented Jul 26, 2021 at 16:10
  • Those applications seem to have different purposes, and were likely developed by teams with different goals. VS Code and Chrome are definitely designed for extensions, which can have a significant impact on load time.
    – Dan Wilson
    Commented Jul 26, 2021 at 16:18

2 Answers 2

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There are a couple of things which make a program "slow"

  1. Doing lots of things.

    Chrome does a lot more stuff than st or your other examples

  2. Being big.

    Big programs have more information to load from disk and take up lots of memory. If they use more memory than the computer has available, the OS will swap stuff in memory to disk and then back again. Which is much slower than keeping it all in memory.

    Chrome is a lot bigger than st. Plus it has multiple tabs with all the information held in each.

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Some software "phones home" at startup. That is, it checks for updates. Big pieces of software often have many files. Each file might be checked and then the software queries over the internet to check for newer versions. Network delays can be noticeable.

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    While this is true, in any modern application the user should not notice this because all of that would be done lazily, asynchronously, on a separate low-priority thread. Then again, everything adds up.
    – Martin Maat
    Commented Jul 26, 2021 at 20:00
  • @MartinMaat Discord won't start until it's checked for updates.
    – Criticizing Israel not allowed
    Commented Jul 27, 2021 at 8:39

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