Installing programs; file sizes

[Siplus]

Why are the package sizes for installers smaller for windows than they are for linux (typically) ?

Examples:

Open Office (http://mirrors.isc.org/pub/openoffice/developer/680_m100/)
source: 276M
linux (x86?): 100M
solaris-sparc: 103M
solaris-x86: 94M  
windows: 84M

Mozilla firefox
linux: 8.2MB
windows: under 5MB

Opera
linux: 4.2 MB
windows: 3.7 MB

Is there something I'm missing? Is is easier to compress the size of the installers for windows? is there more code in the windows API that allows for smaller program sizes than other platforms? What is making windows win for the file sizes?

[WMD]

Most Mac and Linux installers are compressed with gzip, which doesn't compress as well as bzip2 or your typical zip on Windows.  This probably doesn't explain everything, but it's a start.

[Orethrius]

I just wish they'd all switch to 7-Zip.  It's free, it gets WONDERFUL compression ratios, and because of the command-line ports it's not relegated to just Windows.  As a matter of fact, I have it running on Slackware right now, in an archival capacity for my music files.  :cool:

[Refalm]

I just wish they'd all switch to 7-Zip.  It's free, it gets WONDERFUL compression ratios, and because of the command-line ports it's not relegated to just Windows.  As a matter of fact, I have it running on Slackware right now, in an archival capacity for my music files.  :cool:

The application 7-Zip itself isn't at the level of quality of WinRAR yet. If they'd do that, than maybe most geeks will switch to it (since it can already read and write many compression formats).

[WMD]

I just wish they'd all switch to 7-Zip.  It's free, it gets WONDERFUL compression ratios, and because of the command-line ports it's not relegated to just Windows.  As a matter of fact, I have it running on Slackware right now, in an archival capacity for my music files.  :cool:

I just run the Windows GUI of it in Wine like the website suggests.  It's a bit edgy, but it works okay.