[krylon]

I think the major problem with the registry - besides being obscure - is that it can grow really slow as it fills up, and many programs do not clean up their registry data when being uninstalled. I think this is one of the major factors why Windows grows so slow after a couple of years on machines where lots of software is being installed and uninstalled.

[mappu]

Most Linux programs don't remove their files from /etc/, ~/.local, ~/.config on uninstall either.

[krylon]

Granted, but the presence of those files does not slow down the system significantly. With leftover registry keys, you pay the price until you install the system from scratch.

(Windows might have improved the registry handling code since Windows 95/98, I think it's not quite as bad these days... but that might also have to due with computers being much faster than 20 years ago.)

[nitrogen]

That's what the purge option to apt/dpkg is for.