Bloat is subjective. Fedora will be less bloated than Ubuntu, but will be more bloated than something you self install in Arch. But bloat isn't a bad thing in all cases either.
Desktop and Server use cases tend to have different expectations. Servers tend to prioritize base bones and unflinching stability. Desktop tends to want features and hardware compatability. There's a reason Debian is used for servers but Arch is used for desktop.
Thing is Debian (or pehaps I am thinking about Ubuntu or both) seems to have a lot of uhm kernel options enabled for such things as bluetoth, audio, keyboard, mouse etc. that I assume will never be used on a real server (unless some server software strangely depends on these very unserver-like things). I get the impression the in the olden golden age it was more common to have separate kernel settings for server and desktop but now since computers are so powerful they just leave it all in and dont have separate kernel configs for server releases of distros (if they even have server-specific distros at all).
I run all hobby projects on potatoes so RAM usage is very limiting a lot of the time for me.
Fedora doesn't pop up much for servers because of it's 6 month release cycle. But another Red Hat distro, like Rocky or Alma would be a good fit for a server because of their extended release cycles and focus on stability above anything else.
Aha,if its not mentioned often its probably for a good reason. Cool might look at Rocky and Alma then maybe. It would be convenient to have the some distro or at least very similar distros for server and desktop.
Debian stable is stable, but you may feel the obsolescence mounting before the next release. You can improve that a bit with back ports.
I think most of the Bluetooth etc. would be modules which don't load for lack of hardware. Now there is still stub code in the kernel to attach to the module but I suspect the cost of this is rather low.
Debian stable is stable, but you may feel the obsolescence mounting before the next release.
That sounds very appealing. I can live without the current thing.
You can improve that a bit with back ports.
I think I accidentally enabled back-ports for Ubuntu causing my problem, so that leaves a bit of sour taste in the mouth currently.
I think most of the Bluetooth etc. would be modules which don't load for lack of hardware. Now there is still stub code in the kernel to attach to the module but I suspect the cost of this is rather low.
You might be right. I need to double-check that. I thought some of the things I mentioned was baked into the kernel (y instead of m) on some distros but I can be totally wrong about that.
Update: Examined Debian "server". These are baked into the kernel:
~# cat /boot/config-$(uname -r) | grep -E "(SND|AUDIO|SOUND|ALSA|BLUETOOTH|BT_|WIRELESS|WIFI|DRM|FRAMEBUFFER|HID_|MOUSE|JOYSTICK|NTFS|VFAT).*=y"
CONFIG_BLK_WBT_MQ=y
CONFIG_BT_BREDR=y
CONFIG_BT_RFCOMM_TTY=y
CONFIG_BT_BNEP_MC_FILTER=y
CONFIG_BT_BNEP_PROTO_FILTER=y
CONFIG_BT_HS=y
CONFIG_BT_LE=y
CONFIG_BT_LEDS=y
CONFIG_BT_DEBUGFS=y
CONFIG_BT_HCIBTUSB_AUTOSUSPEND=y
CONFIG_BT_HCIBTUSB_BCM=y
CONFIG_BT_HCIBTUSB_MTK=y
CONFIG_BT_HCIBTUSB_RTL=y
CONFIG_BT_HCIUART_SERDEV=y
CONFIG_BT_HCIUART_H4=y
CONFIG_BT_HCIUART_BCSP=y
CONFIG_BT_HCIUART_ATH3K=y
CONFIG_BT_HCIUART_LL=y
CONFIG_BT_HCIUART_3WIRE=y
CONFIG_BT_HCIUART_INTEL=y
CONFIG_BT_HCIUART_BCM=y
CONFIG_BT_HCIUART_RTL=y
CONFIG_BT_HCIUART_QCA=y
CONFIG_BT_HCIUART_AG6XX=y
CONFIG_BT_HCIUART_MRVL=y
CONFIG_WIRELESS=y
CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXT=y
CONFIG_GOOGLE_FRAMEBUFFER_COREBOOT=y
CONFIG_MAC_EMUMOUSEBTN=y
CONFIG_IWLWIFI_LEDS=y
CONFIG_IWLWIFI_OPMODE_MODULAR=y
CONFIG_INPUT_MOUSEDEV=y
CONFIG_INPUT_MOUSEDEV_PSAUX=y
CONFIG_INPUT_MOUSE=y
CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_ALPS=y
CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_BYD=y
CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_LOGIPS2PP=y
CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_SYNAPTICS=y
CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_SYNAPTICS_SMBUS=y
CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_CYPRESS=y
CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_LIFEBOOK=y
CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_TRACKPOINT=y
CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_ELANTECH=y
CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_ELANTECH_SMBUS=y
CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_SENTELIC=y
CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_FOCALTECH=y
CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_VMMOUSE=y
CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_SMBUS=y
CONFIG_MOUSE_ELAN_I2C_I2C=y
CONFIG_MOUSE_ELAN_I2C_SMBUS=y
CONFIG_INPUT_JOYSTICK=y
CONFIG_JOYSTICK_XPAD_FF=y
CONFIG_JOYSTICK_XPAD_LEDS=y
CONFIG_DRM_MIPI_DSI=y
CONFIG_DRM_FBDEV_EMULATION=y
CONFIG_DRM_LOAD_EDID_FIRMWARE=y
CONFIG_DRM_DISPLAY_DP_HELPER=y
CONFIG_DRM_DISPLAY_HDCP_HELPER=y
CONFIG_DRM_DISPLAY_HDMI_HELPER=y
CONFIG_DRM_DP_AUX_CHARDEV=y
CONFIG_DRM_DP_CEC=y
CONFIG_DRM_AMDGPU_SI=y
CONFIG_DRM_AMDGPU_CIK=y
CONFIG_DRM_AMDGPU_USERPTR=y
CONFIG_DRM_AMD_ACP=y
CONFIG_DRM_AMD_DC=y
CONFIG_DRM_AMD_DC_DCN=y
CONFIG_DRM_AMD_DC_HDCP=y
CONFIG_DRM_AMD_DC_SI=y
CONFIG_DRM_NOUVEAU_BACKLIGHT=y
CONFIG_DRM_I915_CAPTURE_ERROR=y
CONFIG_DRM_I915_COMPRESS_ERROR=y
CONFIG_DRM_I915_USERPTR=y
CONFIG_DRM_I915_GVT=y
CONFIG_DRM_PANEL=y
CONFIG_DRM_BRIDGE=y
CONFIG_DRM_PANEL_BRIDGE=y
CONFIG_DRM_XEN=y
CONFIG_DRM_PANEL_ORIENTATION_QUIRKS=y
CONFIG_DRM_NOMODESET=y
CONFIG_DRM_PRIVACY_SCREEN=y
CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE_DETECT_PRIMARY=y
CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE_ROTATION=y
CONFIG_SOUND_OSS_CORE=y
CONFIG_SND_PCM_ELD=y
CONFIG_SND_JACK=y
CONFIG_SND_JACK_INPUT_DEV=y
CONFIG_SND_OSSEMUL=y
CONFIG_SND_PCM_OSS_PLUGINS=y
CONFIG_SND_PCM_TIMER=y
CONFIG_SND_DYNAMIC_MINORS=y
CONFIG_SND_SUPPORT_OLD_API=y
CONFIG_SND_PROC_FS=y
CONFIG_SND_VERBOSE_PROCFS=y
CONFIG_SND_CTL_FAST_LOOKUP=y
CONFIG_SND_VMASTER=y
CONFIG_SND_DMA_SGBUF=y
CONFIG_SND_SEQ_HRTIMER_DEFAULT=y
CONFIG_SND_DRIVERS=y
CONFIG_SND_AC97_POWER_SAVE=y
CONFIG_SND_PCI=y
CONFIG_SND_CS46XX_NEW_DSP=y
CONFIG_SND_ES1968_INPUT=y
CONFIG_SND_ES1968_RADIO=y
CONFIG_SND_FM801_TEA575X_BOOL=y
CONFIG_SND_MAESTRO3_INPUT=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_GENERIC_LEDS=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_HWDEP=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_RECONFIG=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_INPUT_BEEP=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_PATCH_LOADER=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_CA0132_DSP=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_DSP_LOADER=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_COMPONENT=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_I915=y
CONFIG_SND_INTEL_NHLT=y
CONFIG_SND_SPI=y
CONFIG_SND_USB=y
CONFIG_SND_USB_AUDIO_USE_MEDIA_CONTROLLER=y
CONFIG_SND_USB_CAIAQ_INPUT=y
CONFIG_SND_FIREWIRE=y
CONFIG_SND_PCMCIA=y
CONFIG_SND_SOC_COMPRESS=y
CONFIG_SND_SOC_TOPOLOGY=y
CONFIG_SND_SOC_INTEL_SST_TOPLEVEL=y
CONFIG_SND_SOC_INTEL_SKYLAKE_HDAUDIO_CODEC=y
CONFIG_SND_SOC_INTEL_MACH=y
CONFIG_SND_SOC_INTEL_USER_FRIENDLY_LONG_NAMES=y
CONFIG_SND_SOC_SOF_TOPLEVEL=y
CONFIG_SND_SOC_SOF_PROBE_WORK_QUEUE=y
CONFIG_SND_SOC_SOF_IPC3=y
CONFIG_SND_SOC_SOF_INTEL_IPC4=y
CONFIG_SND_SOC_SOF_INTEL_TOPLEVEL=y
CONFIG_SND_SOC_SOF_HDA_LINK=y
CONFIG_SND_SOC_SOF_HDA_AUDIO_CODEC=y
CONFIG_SND_X86=y
CONFIG_HID_BATTERY_STRENGTH=y
CONFIG_HID_ACRUX_FF=y
CONFIG_HID_PICOLCD_FB=y
CONFIG_HID_PICOLCD_BACKLIGHT=y
CONFIG_HID_PICOLCD_LEDS=y
CONFIG_HID_PICOLCD_CIR=y
CONFIG_HID_PID=y
CONFIG_THINKPAD_ACPI_ALSA_SUPPORT=y
And 555 modules (I won't enter them all here number suffices I think):
~# cat /boot/config-$(uname -r) | grep -E "(SND|AUDIO|SOUND|ALSA|BLUETOOTH|BT_|WIRELESS|WIFI|DRM|FRAMEBUFFER|HID_|MOUSE|JOYSTICK|NTFS|VFAT).*=m" | wc -l
555
Now, I am not a Linux pro but that looks pretty bloated for a server and it's even worse with Ubuntu but I get the impression that many stock Linux distro kernels are similarly bloated "nowadays".
They try to support most hardware. You build your own if you want it a certain way, but you have to take that on.
Debian uses systemd, by the way. I don't love it for that, but it doesn't give me many surprises.
If you want super stable and want to customize your kennel look at Slackware.
(post is archived)