How to reduce flatpak app size?

Mon Aug 6 16:34:22 UTC 2018

Can I ask how you are installing the Flatpaks? Because Gimp from Flathub
is only 200MB installed.

Michael Hall
mhall119 at gmail.com

On 08/06/2018 10:31 AM, M. A. Spadaru wrote:
>
> *Hello again,*
>
> *
>
> Sorry for not being clear enough when describing my method. Here is a
> better description:
>
>
> Test:
>
>  *
>
>     Read used disk space: d1
>
>  *
>
>     Install spotify
>
>  *
>
>     Run spotify + login + play “Manowar - Carry on”
>
>  *
>
>     Read used disk space: d2
>
>  *
>
>     Compute disk *footprint of* spotify as d2-d1
>
>  *
>
>     Install VSCore
>
>  *
>
>     Run VSCore + open an existing project folder + edit and save a file
>
>  *
>
>     Read used disk space: d3
>
>  *
>
>     Compute disk *footprint of* VSCode as d3-d2
>
>  *
>
>     Install telegram-desktop
>
>  *
>
>     Run telegram-desktop + login + send a message to a friend
>
>  *
>
>     Read used disk space: d4
>
>  *
>
>     Compute disk *footprint of* telegram-desktop as d4-d3
>
>  *
>
>     Install Gimp
>
>  *
>
>     Run Gimp + open an image
>
>  *
>
>     Read used disk space: d5
>
>  *
>
>     Compute disk *footprint of* Gimp as d5-d4
>
>  *
>
>     Install Android-Studio
>
>  *
>
>     Run Android-Studio + create new project + install sdk + run project
>
>  *
>
>     Read used disk space: d6
>
>  *
>
>     Compute disk footprint of *Android-Studio* as d6-d5
>
>
> After a test I would uninstall the apps, dependencies, and
> settings/config files and any leftover files I could find, as best I
> could. Then proceed to the next test. I executed these 3 tests in this
> order: Native, Snap, Flatpak.
>
> I read the used space on my disk using GParted. Since I have only one
> partition (except swap and /boot/efi), I think this method of
> computing the used disk space should cover any app files,
> dependencies, package format specific files and any config files added
> to /home. It should also over any files added by snapd and the core
> snap.  
>
>
> As pointed out by Alexander Larsson, my values seem to imply that I am
> starting from scratch downloading the runtimes for each flatpak
> application. However, this was not the case. When installing the GIMP
> flatpak, the flatpaks of Spotify, VSCode, and Telegram are already
> installed. Still GIMP needs 450MB of storage space.
>
>
> I also expected that flatpak apps would share runtimes, however this
> does not seem to be the case. So, returning to my initial question: Is
> it possible to reduce the size of this overhead of each individual
> app? Maybe a way to force apps to share runtimes?  
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Mike
>
> *
> On 08/06/2018 11:14 AM, Muayyad AlSadi wrote:
>> I guess the VSCode and alike require SDK runtime (having compiler,
>> headers ..etc) which is like *-devel host packages
>> snap does not ship those
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 6, 2018 at 11:37 AM Alexander Larsson <alexl at redhat.com
>> <mailto:alexl at redhat.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     On Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 9:05 AM, Mike Spadaru
>>     <maspadaru at gmail.com <mailto:maspadaru at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>     > Dear Flatpak community,
>>     >
>>     > I attempted a small experiment to benchmark Snap and Flatpak. On
>>     > Ubuntu 16.04 I picked some apps: Spotify, VSCode, Telegram-Desktop,
>>     > Gimp, Android-Studio. I performed three tests Native (via apt,
>>     .deb or
>>     > PPA), Snap and Flatpak. In each test I would read the used disk
>>     space,
>>     > install an app, run the app and perform a task (same task in each
>>     > test), then read the used disk space again. Before moving to
>>     the next
>>     > test, I uninstalled all the apps and removed any config files
>>     created.
>>     >
>>     > The machine uses only one disk partition. I also recorded CPU,
>>     RAM and
>>     > Power consumption, but there was no clear difference between
>>     the three
>>     > package formats.  My results for the disk usage are shown bellow.
>>     > Values are in mega-bytes:
>>     >
>>     > | App | Native | Snap | Flatpak |
>>     > | Spotify | 240 | 290 | 980 |
>>     > | VSCode | 270 | 220 | 1030 |
>>     > | Telegram | 80 | 100 | 600 |
>>     > | Gimp | 80 | 200 | 450 |
>>     > | Android Studio | 3290 | 3330 | 5930 |
>>
>>     This is not really a fair comparison. You already have basically all
>>     the dependencies of the native packages installed, so installing just
>>     the app is just going to measure the app itself, whereas the flatpak
>>     application will download the dependencies (the runtime) in addition
>>     to the app.
>>     The same happens for snap, i.e. since you're on ubuntu it will
>>     already
>>     have installed the ubuntu core snap, so you're not counting that
>>     space
>>     against the app.
>>
>>     Also, the values you get seem to imply that you're starting from
>>     scratch downloading the runtimes for each flatpak application, but
>>     most apps share the runtimes so if you were to install all the
>>     flatpaks at the same time the total size would not add up to the sum
>>     of your measured sizes.
>>
>>     A better test of snap/flatpak might be to first remove all of snapd,
>>     including all snaps (thus also the core snap), then measure the free
>>     space, install snapd + al* the above snaps and compare the free size
>>     with before. Then do the same with all flatpaks in one install.
>>     That way you will count shared things only once, and accurately
>>     include the size of the snap base in the comparison.
>>     _______________________________________________
>>     Flatpak mailing list
>>     Flatpak at lists.freedesktop.org <mailto:Flatpak at lists.freedesktop.org>
>>     https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/flatpak
>>
>
>
>
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