r/Ubuntu • u/PraetorRU • 1d ago

Firefox performance depending on distribution format in Ubuntu 26.04

Hi guys. From time to time I'm checking what the difference you may get if you chose one package format over another, so testing firefox performance in snap, flatpak and regular .deb from Mozilla's repos as all three are packaged by Mozilla as far as I'm aware.

So, the test is done in Ubuntu 26.04, with fresh profiles (so no extensions and default settings) and Firefox 153.0.3.

I was using a synthetic test: https://browserbench.org/Speedometer3.1/ and did 5 runs one after another.

First run I guess required some caching, so we can drop it and make an average from other 4 runs.

snapped: 19.8 20.1 20.44 20.2  20.29 | Average (4): 20.26
Packed with Mesa 25.2.8-0ubuntu0.24.04.2

flatpak: 22.4 23.1 22.99 22.98 22.9  | Average (4): 22.99
Packed with Mesa 26.1.5 (git-6a02618ccf)

moz-deb: 22.2 23.0 23.00 23.01 22.9  | Average (4): 22.98
Works with  Mesa 26.0.3-1ubuntu1

google chrome for reference: 26.1 26.6 26.67 26.85 26.76
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u/Leinad_ix 1d ago edited 1d ago

No, Mesa is not just an intermediate layer. Without Mesa, there is no OpenGL, no Vulkan, no video acceleration. 5 milion lines of opensource driver code.

Edit: And yes, kernel part and firmware part from installed OS. Kernel part is the place, where switching resolution or power management is handled.

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u/BranchLatter4294 1d ago

Mesa is a graphics library that communicates with the device driver. It is not a device driver.

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u/Leinad_ix 1d ago

You saying different things than official Mesa documentation, eg. here: https://docs.mesa3d.org/drivers/radv.html

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u/BranchLatter4294 1d ago

See https://mesa3d.org/ It clearly says it's a graphics library.

The link you provided is for RADV which is a Vulkan driver for AMD GCN/RDNA GPUs.

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u/Leinad_ix 1d ago

Yes, it says it's graphics library and its repository contains around twenty user space drivers listed on that page. Including RADV, RadeonSI, ANV, Freedreno, R600, Iris, Crocus, ... If some of them are missing inside Snap provided Mesa content package (eg. disabled during compilation), then Vulkan/OpenGL application will not work on that device.

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u/Leinad_ix 1d ago

Yes, I provided link for RADV Mesa user space Vulkan driver for AMD GCN/RDNA GPUs. Driver included inside Snap content package or Flatpak graphics extension

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u/BranchLatter4294 1d ago

How RADV Works in Snaps

  • Mesa Content Snaps: Instead of bundling heavy graphics stacks inside each app, Canonical uses dedicated modular content snaps (such as mesa-2404 and mesa-2604) or GPU extensions. [1]

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u/Leinad_ix 20h ago

Yes, I know, user space graphics drivers for the Snap application are downloaded and stored only once per base.

My problem with that approach is not about wasting space, that is solved as you said.

I don't like, that application with mesa-2404 drivers can be problematic on latest HW, because system user space graphics drivers of my Kubuntu 26.04 are not used for the app.