How to reduce flatpak app size?

Tue Aug 7 08:05:29 UTC 2018

we need a Qt runtime, instead of building telegram on top ~1GB KDE runtime,
it should be on top a 80MB Qt runtime
there are several Qt apps

On Mon, Aug 6, 2018 at 8:41 PM Alberto Fanjul Alonso <
albertofanjul at gmail.com> wrote:

> It is important to understand the things you want to compare.
>
> Forget the technology, flatpaks are files for a program (same as you can
> find in a deb or rpm) running on a sandbox (so all departments they need
> needs to be on its sandbox). They are based on runtimes (another bunch of
> files expected to be much commonly shared, just that)
>
> So if underneath, all bunch of files use ostree (something like a git
> repo) you have an initial clone and from time to time, some updates. But
> did you choose correct things to measure things?
>
> You can find all installed apps verbatim under /var/ or ~/.var/
>
> Telegram uses KDE runtime
> https://github.com/flathub/org.telegram.desktop/blob/master/org.telegram.desktop.json#L3
>
> GIMP uses GNOME runtime.
>
> https://github.com/flathub/org.gimp.GIMP/blob/master/org.gimp.GIMP.json#L4
>
> Install both apps you cannot expect to share anything (maybe something for
> the freedesktop SDK both runtimes share). See runtimes have different
> versions too.
>
> I suppose GIMP is 200Mb and gnome runtime is 250Mb.
>
> I don't think low disk space usage is a goal for flatpak, but sandboxing,
> so if 2 programs need same dep with different build config, that is
> perfectly possible, so apps always will run better, but surely using more
> space.
>
> Do all apps need all the things a runtime bring? Surely not, if you remove
> something from runtime, you need to install "n" times on "n" apps.
> Maintainer do they best to decide what to put on them.
>
> El lun., 6 ago. 2018 18:36, Michael Hall <mhall119 at gmail.com> escribió:
>
>> Can I ask how you are installing the Flatpaks? Because Gimp from Flathub
>> is only 200MB installed.
>>
>> Michael Hallmhall119 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>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 9:05 AM, Mike Spadaru <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
>>> https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/flatpak
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Flatpak mailing listFlatpak at lists.freedesktop.orghttps://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/flatpak
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Flatpak mailing list
>> Flatpak at lists.freedesktop.org
>> https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/flatpak
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Flatpak mailing list
> Flatpak at lists.freedesktop.org
> https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/flatpak
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/flatpak/attachments/20180807/3e59a94e/attachment-0001.html>