[FFmpeg-devel] Snapping ffmpeg

[Alan Pope]

Hi Timo,

On 1 June 2017 at 14:47, Timo Rothenpieler <timo at rothenpieler.org> wrote:
> Would this only grant access to the binaries, or also the
> libraries/development files?
>

Not sure I follow. The snap can contain whatever you want, binaries,
libraries etc. At build time you can specify 'build-packages' required
by the compilation, and 'stage-packages' required to be inside the
snap at runtime. Here's [0] an example yaml (for ffmpeg) which might
illustrate this. I knocked this together via a bit of trial and error,
so it's not necessarily confirming to your build standards or
recommended enabled options, but it should give you an idea.

http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~popey/+junk/ffmpegmaster/view/head:/snap/snapcraft.yaml

> It'd be debatable which dependencies the built ffmpeg includes. A
> minimal ffmpeg without most/any dependencies is already big enough, but
> when bundling all external dependencies, it would result in a quite huge
> download.
>

Snaps have a couple of interesting concepts. The snap itself is a
squashfs file so is compressed and read-only on-disk. So in some
circumstances ends up being a smaller on-disk footprint than a
traditional install of ffmpeg via a typical package manager. We also
support delta updates to minimise download (and upload) bandwidth. Our
build service (backed by launchpad) can do the builds for you too, if
needed.

> I'll have a look at this if nobody else is super eager to jump at it.
>

That would be awesome. Thanks.

We have a forum [1] where the snapd and snapcraft developers hang out.
If you get stuck in terms of documentation or bugs, feel free to post
there or ping me personally.

[0] http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~popey/+junk/ffmpegmaster/view/head:/snap/snapcraft.yaml
[1] http://forum.snapcraft.io/

-- 
Alan Pope
Snap Advocate

Canonical - Ubuntu Engineering and Services
+44 (0) 7973 620 164
alan.pope at canonical.com
http://ubuntu.com/