Do I really need xdg-desktop-portal[-gnome] if I don't use flatpak

[brianjmurrell]

I don't really understand the concepts behind xdg-desktop-portals but have gathered they are used by the sandboxing that flatpak'd software deployment uses. So do I need xdg-desktop-portal[-gnome] if I am not now using nor ever will use flatpak(s)?

It is currently the second highest resident memory consumer on my system only behind chrome. It's CPU use is not trivial either. It's currently at 42:37.50 out of 18 days of uptime.

So if I don't actually need it if I am not using any flatpak'd software I could sure use that resident memory and CPU usage back.

[GeorgesStavracas]

XDG Portals can be used by sandboxed (Flatpak and Snap) and unsandboxed apps as well

[hfiguiere]

It is currently the second highest resident memory consumer on my system only behind chrome.

This is https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/xdg-desktop-portal-gnome/-/issues/91 it seems. I must be doing something because I haven't been able to reproduce.

[andrei-korshikov]

To my understanding, you really need xdg-desktop-portal if an application requires (has hard dependency on) it.

I can guess that for common things like open/save dialogs most applications these days will just use GTK/Qt directly. For some more crazy stuff—like screen sharing via PipeWire on Wayland—I can't imagine;)

Anyway, if Portals are optional dependency for a given application, there is no way to answer "in general" what application features are implemented via Portals only.