Large .zip for Windows

jbs3645 · Post by **jbs3645** » March 18th, 2004, 9:20 am

Why is the .zip download for windows more than twice the size of the .exe?
13457 KB, 10-Mar-04, 12:34:00 PM versus 6416 KB, 17-Mar-04, 12:40:00 PM
I prefer the .zip because I don't like the installer program that comes with the .exe.

Mook · Post by **Mook** » March 18th, 2004, 9:54 am

Because you want the -msvc zip

It's still bigger because, IIRC, it has some extra cruft not in the exe - the installer build process takes only specfied files from the zip, plus the installer and related files. This means that the extra stuff doesn't get picked up by the installer.

sasquatch · Post by **sasquatch** » March 18th, 2004, 11:37 am

I didn't know, so had to look it up. In case others were wondering:

cruft

/kruhft/ [very common; back-formation from crufty] 1. n.
An unpleasant substance. The dust that gathers under your bed is
cruft; the TMRC Dictionary correctly noted that attacking it with a
broom only produces more. 2. n. The results of shoddy construction.
3. vt. [from `hand cruft', pun on `hand craft'] To write assembler
code for something normally (and better) done by a compiler (see
hand-hacking). 4. n. Excess; superfluous junk; used esp. of
redundant or superseded code. 5. [University of Wisconsin] n. Cruft
is to hackers as gaggle is to geese; that is, at UW one properly
says "a cruft of hackers".

jbs3645 · Post by **jbs3645** » March 18th, 2004, 2:19 pm

Mook, thanks for the info but it raises a few more. What exactly is a -msvc build? I have always downloaded the firefox-win32.zip or firebird or phoenix. What is different between that and the one you linked? And now that raises another question. You said that that the installer build takes only specified files etc from the zip and doesn't pick up the other stuff. That strikes be as odd. Most programs that i have downloaded over the years have a smaller .zip than a .exe size. Why would firefox be different. I admit that I am not a programmer nor do I know anything about programming other than when I looked at some code one time my head starting spinning and got kind of numb

Seriously though, I do appreciate your info and hope that you can shed some more light. Thanks a bunch.

sasquatch - love it - brighten my day

John

MonkeeSage · Post by **MonkeeSage** » March 18th, 2004, 3:08 pm

I'm not sure about the Mozilla Installer, but if it is similar to the NSIS, it probably uses tar or bz2 as it's compression format, which acheives greater compression. Just look at the size of the tar files versus the zip files or the bz2 files versus the tar files. That may account for some of the discrepancy in file sizes.

Shelumi`El
Jordan

S.D.G

Mook · Post by **Mook** » March 18th, 2004, 5:57 pm

As far as I can tell, XPInstall uses .xpi (=.zip), just like the rest of the engine.

My best guess on the -msvc build is that... it's all the same thing, just that the machine doing the building had some configuration changes so now it's making nightlies with a different file name. Hence the -cygwin build (that lasted for, what, less than a week?) and the fact that we still only get one Windows build a day. (I think latest-trunk works by keeping the last file with the same file name - hence, each time the file name changes, the old one gets left behind)

As for the installer containing fewer files - I think this is because the installer takes a file list and puts them in, and the zip files hold the whole dist/bin directory. So stuff that shows up automatically from the build process go in the zip as well, whereas the installer only grabs files from there that it actually needs. Most zip files are smaller than installer files because most of the time, the zip files don't actually contain extra files

For example, the installer doesn't seem to want mangle.exe, where as it's in the zip.

(Note: it's not like I actually really know what the installer is doing either - take with a grain of salt. I'm just going by what shows up in the build logs.)

MonkeeSage · Post by **MonkeeSage** » March 18th, 2004, 7:07 pm

Mook wrote:As far as I can tell, XPInstall uses .xpi (=.zip), just like the rest of the engine.

I build with --disable-installer, so I wasn't sure, but come to think of it, you're probably right. And there is even a standalone version of the XPI (xpinstall\standalone), which is what I'm guessing the installer uses. I was thinking of the NSIS-like installer that used to be on Texturizer for 0.7 I think.

Shelumi`El
Jordan

S.D.G

jbs3645 · Post by **jbs3645** » March 18th, 2004, 11:23 pm

Hey guys, thanks for the input. I think I will stick with the version I have now until a firefox-win32.zip comes along with a decent size. I guess I am just trying to stay with official versions and not individual builds. Just a quirk I guess. Heck, I don't even use extensions. Just modify the user.js and the chromes. Thanks again.

John

firemonkey · Post by **firemonkey** » March 19th, 2004, 12:16 am

Correct me if I am wrong someone...

firefox-i586-pc-msvc.zip is the official current build for windows. It was compiled against MSVC hence the name.

It is no longer being built as firefox-win32.zip. I beleive this is still in the latest trunk folder because it is no longer being replaced with a file with the same name and someone either still wants it there or hasn't bothered to remove it. It is large because winEmbed and mfcembed were included in the zip (these are not necessary by the way for those using the browser for browsing sake).

firefox-i686-pc-cygwin.zip was also a Windows build but using Cygwin. Don't know if it was official, a test build, or if it was a workaround due to the borked builds a couple of weeks ago. In any case it is not the latest build.

So for those nightly build junkies (such as myself) you could probably safely (as safe as you can be with nightly builds) stick with firefox-i586-pc-msvc.zip until/unless the name of the build changes again. Also Peter(6) so kindly has been posting a daily note regarding the official builds with an appropriate link.

Post by **Nitin** » March 19th, 2004, 12:44 am

bug for removal of obsolete zip files

Marking sticky until someone cleans up latest-trunk

Deucalion · Post by **Deucalion** » March 19th, 2004, 11:04 am

I thought I read somewhere that the i586 builds were optimized for pentium III and i686 for pentium IV. Is that incorrect?

firemonkey · Post by **firemonkey** » March 19th, 2004, 9:14 pm

i586 would use optimizations for the original pentiums and AMD K5.
i686 would be optimized for pentium pro and above (Ppro,P2 through P4, Celerons, AMD K6, Athlon and higher). PIII is i686.

Of course this is just general information and there are other processors which would fit into one or the other but this is just a quick general list. In addition, I do not know if there is actaully any optimizations taking place or whether the difference in names was only a result of the tools used and the target of the build.

MozJF · Post by **MozJF** » March 20th, 2004, 12:14 am

firemonkey wrote:i586 would use optimizations for the original pentiums and AMD K5.

You forgot K6, which is (AMD lies here) a i586 CPU too !

i686 would be optimized for pentium pro and above (Ppro,P2 through P4, Celerons, AMD K6, Athlon and higher). PIII is i686.

No K6.

Of course this is just general information and there are other processors which would fit into one or the other but this is just a quick general list. In addition, I do not know if there is actaully any optimizations taking place or whether the difference in names was only a result of the tools used and the target of the build.

i686 CPU can run i586 based build, but i586 cannot run i686 CPU based build.

luthe · Post by **luthe** » March 20th, 2004, 10:31 am

tar doesn't compress anything. Tar stands for Tape archive. It basicly just puts the files end to end in on larger file along with some bookkeeping info. When you have a tar.gz or a tar.bzip file is roughly equivilent with a solid archive made by winrar or 7zip, unlike standard zip files which are not solid and compress each file individually.

Post by **old Harry Waldron** » March 20th, 2004, 11:30 am

firemonkey wrote:firefox-i586-pc-msvc.zip is the official current build for windows. It was compiled against MSVC hence the name. It is no longer being built as firefox-win32.zip

Thank you for the clarifications as the Zip Build surprised me in the past week or two when it doubled in size. I'm glad to now be back on the lastest-and-greatest and the March 19th version of firefox-i586-pc-msvc.zip works great for me under W/98