Reopen RFP Skia - Google's 2D graphic suite
Hello,
TL;DR Please consider reopening the following request for packaging :
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=818180
Skia library is monolithic, comparable to Cairo, and has become quite
central
in 2D graphics :
it is used in Firefox, Chromium, so it ends up in Chrome,
Electron-based software such as Atom, VSCode... LibreOffice...
As far as I know, currently, each of these packages statically bundles
its skia,
which is often tens of MBs. The full Skia library build is 500MB.
I don't know the history between Skia and GNU/Linux.
It seems to me that Google is pretty neutral here. They do their thing
with their Chrome, Android and Flutter branches, and do not actively
sponsor
the library towards GNU/Linux distributions.
I believe that the effort of decoupling Skia from the upstream packages
can be worth it. It could to allow more people to hear about the
existence of
the library in the first place, to study its algorithms,
and maybe build upon them. There is tiny-skia in rust for example.
Of course, decoupling skia and packaging it as a shared library
could save storage space too.
Building a static library on Bullseye is pretty straightforward
with the instructions on Skia's website,
https://skia.org/docs/user/download/
it resembles, on a bullseye machine, to:
```bash
#!/bin/bash
apt install build-essential git python2 python llvm-11 llvm-11-dev
clang-11 clang libvulkan-dev vulkan-tools
git clone https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/tools/depot_tools.git
export PATH="${PWD}/depot_tools:${PATH}"
git clone https://skia.googlesource.com/skia.git
cd skia
python2 tools/git-sync-deps
tools/install_dependencies.sh
mkdir out
bin/gn gen out/clang11_unofficial_static --args'cc="clang" cxx="clang++"
is_official_build=false'
ninja -C out/clang11_unofficial_static
#launching the demo viewer
out/clang11_unofficial_static/viewer --resourcePath resources
```
... building a .so is more involved, I do have an issue with the dependency
Harfbuzz, the text layout and shaper library.
Its component harfbuzz-subset has been stabilized and released
three months ago, it is not yet packaged in Debian,
and is looked-for by the linker in git HEAD. Will try an older tag.
I also have trouble getting the Vulkan backend to run on the free amdgpu
driver:
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/skia/issues/detail?id=12736
I do not have the rights on the request mail server to unarchive the RFP.
Down below is :
- the ripgrep of a Skia struct, "SkCpu" on my system. Beat me to it,
I have installed quite a lot of software outside of apt,
sometimes proprietary. Still, there's a lot of Skia in here, and
the heuristic
to find where skia is statically bundled is far from perfect.
- the irc.libera.chat discussion that spawned this mail
Best regards, Maxime
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
```bash
mada# whoami
root
mada# pwd
/
mada# rg -uuu -i -g
'!{var/log/*,proc/*,sys/*,run/*,dev/*,home/maxzor/skia/*,*cquery_cached_index*}'
-T{cpp,txt,log} SkCpu | grep "Binary file"
Binary file opt/Element/element-desktop matches (found "\u{0}" byte
around offset 7)
Binary file opt/Sozi/Sozi matches (found "\u{0}" byte around offset 7)
Binary file opt/BlueJeans/bluejeans-v2 matches (found "\u{0}" byte
around offset 7)
Binary file usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5WebEngineCore.so.5.12.8
matches (found "\u{0}" byte around offset 8)
Binary file usr/share/discord/Discord matches (found "\u{0}" byte around
offset 7)
Binary file var/lib/mlocate/mlocate.db matches (found "\u{0}" byte
around offset 0)
Binary file usr/share/code/code matches (found "\u{0}" byte around offset 7)
Binary file opt/google/chrome/chrome matches (found "\u{0}" byte around
offset 7)
Binary file var/lib/snapd/snaps/atom_281.snap matches (found "\u{0}"
byte around offset 6)
Binary file home/maxzor/Téléchargements/Telegram/Telegram matches (found
"\u{0}" byte around offset 8)
Binary file home/maxzor/.cache/Cypress/4.12.1/Cypress/Cypress matches
(found "\u{0}" byte around offset 7)
Binary file
home/maxzor/Qt/5.14.0/gcc_64/lib/libQt5WebEngineCore.so.5.14.0.debug
matches (found "\u{0}" byte around offset 8)
Binary file
home/maxzor/odoo/.git/objects/pack/pack-1214eae81df955baf62061658e62733a74577092.pack
matches (found "\u{0}" byte around offset 4)
Binary file snap/atom/281/usr/share/atom/atom matches (found "\u{0}"
byte around offset 7)
Binary file snap/spotify/56/usr/share/spotify/libcef.so matches (found
"\u{0}" byte around offset 7)
Binary file snap/chromium/1810/usr/lib/chromium-browser/chrome matches
(found "\u{0}" byte around offset 7)
Binary file
home/maxzor/elk/kibana/.git/objects/pack/pack-1dc16e6c292416e9a1d79d2758c21457782106e6.pack
matches (found "\u{0}" byte around offset 4)
Binary file home/maxzor/.wine/drive_c/Program Files
(x86)/PokerStars.FR/br/libcef.dll matches (found "\u{0}" byte around
offset 3)
Binary file snap/atom/281/usr/share/atom/resources/app.asar matches
(found "\u{0}" byte around offset 1)
Binary file
home/maxzor/.config/Code/User/workspaceStorage/f8f177104bc523ac23c61fe16767beac/ms-vscode.cpptools/.browse.VC.db
matches (found "\u{0}" byte around offset 15)
Binary file
home/maxzor/schedviz/node_modules/puppeteer/.local-chromium/linux-515411/chrome-linux/chrome
matches (found "\u{0}" byte around offset 7)
Binary file
opt/BlueJeans/resources/app.asar.unpacked/node_modules/fiber-wrapper-node/dependencies/build/fiberclient/lib/libfiberclient.so
matches (found "\u{0}" byte around offset 8)
Binary file
var/lib/docker/overlay2/6f13b5d8cbd355634ebe783c89d46e6f1f00e98ee2884b5df0cc435d99e0e652/diff/root/.cache/Cypress/5.3.0/Cypress/Cypress
matches (found "\u{0}" byte around offset 7)
```
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<maxzor> Hello again, do you know why skia is not packaged?
<somiaj> maxzor: assuming it meets the DSFG, it is often lack of someone
volunteering to do the work
<jkc> maxzor: Didn't you just ask this in #ubuntu?
<maxzor> I did jkc, I was received... strangely
<somiaj> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=818180 -- hmm
unsure why that bug was marked as done and archived, but there was an
RFP bug for it a while ago. MAybe they close old RFP bugs if no one
steps up since projects can die and not be needed. Also could be a
library not needed by other things in debian.
<judd> Bug https://bugs.debian.org/818180 in wnpp (closed): «RFP: skia
-- graphics library»; severity: wishlist; opened: 2016-03-14; last
modified: 2019-05-19.
<maxzor> If I understood correctly, it is currently statically linked by
chrome, firefox, libreoffice... and is 500MB
<Khepra> Is that even intended for linux... no mention of linux here
https://skia.org/docs/user/build/
<Khepra> GNU/Linux I mean
<maxzor> it surely builds, I did it yesterday here on ubuntu 20.04, was
not THAT hard. The only issue, that I found, is that the vulkan backend
*seems* to need proprietary GPU drivers :
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/skia/issues/detail?id=12736&sort=-id
<Khepra> maxzor: does it build on debian?
<maxzor> I'll fire up a bullseye VM, but can't see why it wouldn't
<Khepra> why are you asking here then?
<maxzor> what do you mean?
<somiaj> also are you sure that the debian packages for
firefox/libreoffice/chomrium actually enable this libary, could be that
it just isn't used in debian's packages despite being used upstream.
<Khepra> maxzor: I thought you were asking why it wasn't packged for debian
<Khepra> and the question was does it even build, given required
dependencies
<maxzor> no I am not sure at all somiaj, that's what I asked first, if
you knew why this library seemingly central to modern 2D was not
packaged. Maybe does firefox have a cairo backend or something, I have
no clue
<somiaj> Unfourntally the only info I found is the RFC bug which was
closed. Debian policy doesn't like static linked/bundeled libaries, so
the fact it was closed and not built might mean it isn't needed for
Debian. Though I can't give a definitive answer
<Khepra> and that said, can it even be used in firefox unless it's part
of the upstream source tarball?
<somiaj> though the firefox-esr changelog metnions gfx/skia/... a bit,
it could be something that isn't mean to be standa alone?
<somiaj> It seems it comes as part of the firefox source, and maybe
there is little insentitive to modify the source and make it use a
shared libarary
<maxzor> it is in chromium sources aswell, so it ends up in qt sources...
<maxzor> in atom, vscode, ... you know the drill
<maxzor> it can compile as so, trying on the vm
<somiaj> yea, this does seem unstandard, but it seems all upstreams are
bundeling the source already, and it would require a lot of work for
debian to extract it, remove it from all the upstream sources and turn
it into a shared library (this is providing they even all use a
compadiable version)
<somiaj> you might be able to dig up some discussion in the mailing
lists about this, but not finding much. Just seems this library is
already being bundeled by upstreams, so the work to pull it out may not
be worth it
<maxzor> 5 CVEs a year for skia is all I found in the mailing lists indeed
<maxzor> thank you for the inputs
<jelly> I'm not sure closing a RFP like that is legit workflow
<maxzor> will reopen and send to mailing list when it finishes building
on debian
<somiaj> maxzor: note you have to unarchive first
Reply to: