esp32 and ulab

[uraich]

I try to include ulab into micropython but since a few months the esp32 image becomes extremely large:
-rw-rw-r-- 1 uli uli 3687328 Feb 28 21:04 micropython.bin
On the other hand I have an esp32s3 version in which I integrate tensorflow lite micro as well as ulab and I get:
-rw-rw-r-- 1 uli uli 2422928 Feb 28 18:59 micropython.bin
Do you any idea what the reason might be?

[Josverl]

it is really hard to comment on this based on this limited information.

There was a similar size issue reported in https://github.com/orgs/micropython/discussions/17225 but that was apparently unresolved.

Have you checked the ulab discussions ?

If you want to have in depth visibility of what takes up room in your builds then there are two tools that may be useful to you :

• membrowse.com - to see what takes up space when building your firmware
• or to check out your running firmware : ESPConnect/

[uraich]

Hi Jos,
Thanks for the very quick answer. I had a look at the reported issue and it says that the problem is not resolved. It says, that it may be due to a change in esp32_common.cmake, which happened in v1.26 of micropython. It says that these lines are compromising:

If(MICROPY_ROM_TEXT_COMPRESSION)  
    target_sources(${MICROPY_TARGET} PRIVATE  
        ${MICROPY_COMPRESSED_DATA}  
    )  
endif()

I therefore tried to comment these lines and that significantly reduced the firmware size. I would have expected that text compression would have reduced the size, but it did the contrary. Without ulab, everything looks fine, also when including other C modules. As the author of the issue says, there must be some incompatibility between ulab and micropython induced by the change in esp32_common.cmake.

[Josverl]

Possibly relevant:

• PR : esp32/esp32_common.cmake: Add missing C flags to user C module sources. #18884
• issue cmake: Route usermod sources through native port build systems. #18880

[uraich]

Hi Jos,
... not only possibly relevant! This does the trick!
Thanks very much to you to keep me informed, and to Damien for the modification.