Slow setup on ubuntu-slim

[JurianArie]

Hi, first of all thank you for your work on this action!

Summary

The setup-php action takes ~2 minutes on ubuntu-slim runners vs ~13 seconds on ubuntu-latest.

Context

A few months ago GitHub announced a new runner type called ubuntu-slim costing only $0.002 per minute (vs $0.006 for ubuntu-latest). I wanted to switch some workflows over to this more cost-effective runner at work, however the action takes significantly longer to complete.

Test Results

I created a test repository to compare performance: https://github.com/JurianArie/ubuntu-slim-setup-php

Runner type	Link	Time
ubuntu-slim	Run #20711784166	2m 25s
ubuntu-latest	Run #20711816040	13s

Question

Are there any plans to optimize setup time for the ubuntu-slim runner type?

References

• GitHub Blog: 1-vCPU Linux runner announcement
• Actions runner pricing

[shivammathur]

@JurianArie

We do not have cached builds for ubuntu-slim and since it does not have most libraries pre-installed, it takes time to install.

I understand the cheaper pricing, and if there is more demand, I can add cached builds for it, but I'm reluctant since it will add maintenance burden on our end.