[Python-apps-team] Bug#947929: frescobaldi: Redirect TMPDIR to ram disk, because of automatic engraving

[Silvério Santos]

Package: frescobaldi
Version: 3.0.0+ds1-2
Severity: wishlist
Tags: newcomer

Dear Maintainer,

with the automatic engraving function activated Frescobaldi constantly compiles
the .ly source code in at least one file (layout, e.g. .pdf), sometimes also
more (+ .midi). This happens almost after every change in the source code, so
this behavior wears out SSDs. To work around this I propose to set up a tmpfs
ram disk and redefine the TMPFS env var to that path for Frescobaldi. Since I
found no option inside the software, I did it on loading the software:

Manual new line to /etc/fstab:
none /media/username/frescoram tmpfs

Manual change to the Frescobaldi menu entry:
TMPDIR=/media/username/frescoram/ bash -c 'frescobaldi "%F"'

To be honest, with the small files I use, there is no major speedup, but this
might be different for bigger projects. Instead, the small size of the files
are perfect for today's usual computers to dynamically redirect a tiny part of
their multi-GB RAM in order to protect the hardware (200 KB in my case!). Also,
if used up, tmpfs starts to swap instead of reporting to be full.

Obviously this is a quickly available solution, but only a workaround. It could
be useful to have this integrated into the software, where the amount of
available RAM and other things, like the creation of the ram disk, can be
programatically taken into account.



-- System Information:
Debian Release: bullseye/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 5.3.0-2-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=de_DE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=de (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages frescobaldi depends on:
ii  libportmidi0            1:217-6
ii  python3                 3.7.5-1
ii  python3-ly              0.9.5-3
ii  python3-poppler-qt5     0.24.2-3+b4
ii  python3-pyqt5           5.13.2+dfsg-1
ii  python3-pyqt5.qtsvg     5.13.2+dfsg-1
ii  python3-pyqt5.qtwebkit  5.13.2+dfsg-1
ii  tango-icon-theme        0.8.90-7

Versions of packages frescobaldi recommends:
ii  lilypond  2.19.81+really-2.18.2-13

Versions of packages frescobaldi suggests:
ii  hyphen-de [hyphen-hyphenation-patterns]  1:6.3.4-1
ii  lilypond-doc                             2.19.81+really-2.18.2-13

-- debconf-show failed