[GAP Forum] Speed up loading, minimize workspace file

[Alexander Konovalov]

Hello Vlad,

On 16 Dec 2013, at 22:34, vlad at vladikoff.com wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I'm looking for a way to speed up GAP loading.
> How can I do this? Or how can I minimize my workspace file?

Using the workspace is the recommended way to speed it up. 

On my machine, the workspace created with the BOB installer
( http://neunhoef.github.io/bob/ ) occupies 38 MB for 32-bit
mode and 67 MB for 64-bit mode. Are you interested in 
squeezing it even further? Is this a network installation, or
slow machine, or anything else which motivates your question?

> I'm assuming that unloading certain packages and components might help, but I'm not sure how to do that. Should I just move them out of the `pkg` directory?

Those packages which are not loaded at startup, they do not 
make big use of the workspace (only meta-data will be loaded). 
Also, some packages are required to run GAP, and some extend 
it significantly, and some depend on others, so one should be 
careful. It's easy to break the system without any significant
gain in loading time.

Hope this helps
Alexander