Flathub Download Size is confusing

[Yamin Bismilla]

The information provided for Snap/FlatPak packages is confusing and should be improved.

For example, the Flatpak Developer Demo currently shows the following information

Download Size = 918.1 MB
Installed Size = 257.5 KB

This is inconsistent and confusing. For my case, it led me to thinking there was something wrong with Snap/flatpak packages. Why are they so huge! Then I had to do some research.

It's my understanding this is due to possibly having to download and install a 'runtime' along with the application. Please correct me if my understanding is incorrect. In this case, as I don't have many flatpak runtimes, the huge download size is probably to download the runtimes. If I download another flatpak using the same runtime, the download size would be much smaller as it would not need to redownload the runtime But the install size is also not really 257.5 KB, as it is also going to install a huge runtime. The reason why we're listing installed size is to give an idea of how much disk space is going to be used anyways.

Proposed resolutions
1. Separate out application and runtimes in the display
    a. Download Size = 200 KB, 900 MB runtime
    b. Installed Size = 257.5 KB, 900 MB runtime
2. Have both items include the runtime
    a. Download Size = 918.1 MB
    b. Installed Size = 918.2 MB
3. Have both a total and a breakdown
    a. Download Size = 918.1 MB ( 200KB application, 900 MB runtime)
    b. Installed Size = 918.2 MB ( 257.5 KB application, 900 MB runtime)
4. Separate out the runtimes as a dependency or something like that
    a. Download Size = 200 KB
    b. Installed Size = 257.2 KB
    This option is confusing as it would not give a good indicator of how long the download would be. But maybe there is a better way overall to handle dependencies like this in software center, so I just threw this in as an option

[Robert Ancell (robert-ancell)]

Is there a Snap which shows this issue?

[Yamin Bismilla (yaminb)]

@Robert Ancell,

I was almost sure I had seen this impact Snap before. But I just checkout quite a few Snap packages, and it only shows the Download Size and they all seem reasonable.

Apologies, I must have remembered wrong. This doesn't impact Snaps it looks like
(I will change the title/description if I can)

I guess the only thing that might impact Snap is if the DL size includes the runtime, if that can be separated out as well, so people can gauge how big the application is.

[Robert Ancell (robert-ancell)]

I'm pretty sure the Snap doesn't include the runtime, which is a little confusing but something you generally only hit the first time you download.

I recommend you file the Flatpak size issue in https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-software/issues as it's not something we're actively working on in Ubuntu.

[Yamin Bismilla (yaminb)]

file as:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-software/issues/863