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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Wow, they are going to zip it with a different algo. That's fucking amazing!
Faster installation, I don't know what I will do with all that extra time!
Plus, faster downloads, that's even more free time.
Mozilla really know how to innovate.
Best company evvvvaaarrr
It's a little boring but not bad news. Why the hate?!
Give 2 millions bonus to that CEO!
Well, now you mention it, the motivation here may be to reduce their bandwidth costs? Probably not 2 million, but every € counts...
Who's not using a package manager? Except for LFS, for which you should compile it yourself.
I highly suggests all Ubuntu users to use the vanilla Firefox version downloaded from Mozilla. It's way better because it's not a Snap package.
Most normal users do not do this. But there might be special packages with special setups, like scripts downloading and installing from Mozillas download links. Or package creators themselves might use it. Or maybe you are a developer, in which case such direct downloads would be helpful for testing and comparing stuff. I also assume most people do not care or notice any difference with this change. Still its an improvement without much drawback and thats always good, even if its only a few people benefiting of it.
Yeah, particularly for downloading Firefox Nightly, these self-contained archives are extremely helpful.
And sometimes -bin AUR packages (and of course some normal packages, behind the scenes) use those packages as base. Even though I prefer normal or -git packages.
NixOS packaging pipeline will benefit from this
On Ubuntu I use the tar.bz2 version to not have to deal with snaps or extra repositories. Also on Debian Stable to get the latest version.
I use the flatpak on Fedora but have used the tar version in the past because the package managed version is hijacked with stupid Redhat marks and homepage that loves to return after being removed randomly.
I don't. I have installed Firefox manually for many years across several distros now, albeit for different reasons. For example:
Debian only has Firefox ESR in the Bookworm repo. I want the latest mainline version.
Bazzite only offers it via Flatpak, which breaks functionality I need such as native messaging.
I see no problem installing it manually. It keeps itself updated and has caused me zero problems.
The .tar.xz format decompresses more than twice as fast as .tar.bz2, allowing you to get up and running in no time
$ time tar xjf firefox-134.0b3.tar.bz2
real 0m9.045s
user 0m8.839s
sys 0m0.450s
$ time tar xJf firefox-135.0a1.en-US.linux-x86_64.tar.xz
real 0m4.903s
user 0m4.677s
sys 0m0.510s
Nice! Presumably it'd be twice as fast if disk was infinitely fast or something. Unfortunately by testing this I've already used up a hundred times more time than I'll ever save as a result of it.
I am curious too. You tested two different versions, one beta and the other current nightly (different content). It's okay for a quick test, but you can actually have a much closer test. Both nightly and only one day difference:
I run this quick test multiple times and on average these are typical results (don't forget to delete the unpacked folder between each runs):
$ time tar xjf firefox-135.0a1.en-US.linux-x86_64.tar.bz2
real 0m5,784s
user 0m5,700s
sys 0m0,371s
$ time tar xJf firefox-135.0a1.en-US.linux-x86_64.tar.xz
real 0m1,699s
user 0m1,621s
sys 0m0,315s
On my system that consistently gets results around 10s and 5s so the difference is sort of interesting. Mine's a Ryzen 3600, maybe newer CPU features are of substantial benefit to xz.
Fixing their damn sandbox would be something truly useful.
Implementing a fork server so Flatpak AND Android Firefox can stop being fucking insecure for no reason.
Why do they not just ship normal packages (.deb, .rpm, etc.) or an official flatpak that functions properly?
The Flatpak is official.
But it doesn't work properly.
How doesn't it work properly for you?
Doesn't go full screen on media correctly. Leaves the media the same size and adds massive grey bars to the receiving screen space. Interestingly, the flatpaks of every Firefox-based browser I've tried do the same.
Certainty, this is a you problem.
All this under wayland?
Yeah
I think the "etc" shows how f***ed up it might be to package for every single distro. Releasing a tar with no extra bloat and letting each community doing its own things over it is probably one of the best approaches?
But it makes finding a properly functioning official package more difficult for newer users, and really the etc. was superfluous. You only really need .deb, .rpm, and whatever arch uses. There is a flatpak, but it doesn't work properly.
They officially publish the snap, the flatpak and a deb in an apt repo.
I think, you've answered your own question? There's a lot of different formats for Linux. Getting them all correct and working on the different distributions is significantly trickier than just bundling a self-contained archive.
Having said that, they do actually provide a DEB repo since a few months ago: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux#w_install-firefox-deb-package-for-debian-based-distributions-recommended
Yes, use the format that was almost backdoored a few months ago! I'm sure it has a very strong development team behind it! /s
I would call it the format that has the most eyes on it now.
My point is that it had an overworked maintainer who was easily persuaded into giving the project to someone else. I highly doubt it has gotten a solid team behind it now.
It wasn't "easy" at all, they had to put in over 2 years of useful contributions before there was chance to insert the malware. If you're worried just stay on an older version, it should still open new files perfectly fine.
Interesting, I always assumed they would be using a pretty optimal algorithm with their .tar.bz2 format, because they obviously benefit quite a bit from smaller downloads. Good to know that .tar.xz is actually better.
XZ is quite slow for compression when single threaded. When run in parallel it uses a significant amount of RAM. It creates some of the smallest files and is fast to decompress compared to other well-compressed alternatives.
Source: https://linuxreviews.org/Comparison_of_Compression_Algorithms
Thanks. 🙂
🤷