[ryandrake]

Recent Linux distributions are quickly catching up to Windows and macOS. Do a fresh install of your favorite distribution and then use 'ps' to look at what's running. Dozens of processes doing who knows what? They're probably not pegging your CPU at 100%, which is good, but it seems that gone are the days when you could turn on your computer and it was truly idle until you commanded it to actually do something. That's a special use case now, I suppose.

[ndriscoll]

IME on Linux the only things that use random CPU while idle are web browsers. Otherwise, there's dbus and NetworkManager and bluez and oomd and stuff, but most processes have a fraction of a second used CPU over months. If they're not using CPU, they'll presumably swap out if needed, so they're using ~nothing.

[craftkiller]

This is one the reasons I love FreeBSD. You boot up a fresh install of FreeBSD and there are only a couple processes running and I know what each of them does / why they are there.

[m3047]

At least under some circumstances Linux shows (schedulable) threads as separate processes. Just be aware of that.

[radlad]

this is why I use arch btw

[diggan]

Add Gnome3 and you can have that too! Source: me, a arch+gnome user, who recently had to turn off the search indexer as it was stuck processing countless multi-GB binary files...

[johnisgood]

Exactly, or Void, or Alpine, but I love pacman.

[rirze]

this guy arches

[ciupicri]

I recommend using systemd-cgls to get a better idea of what's going on.