NXP Gone mad

Only marginally. Are you still on dial up?

Actually pdf's are usually compressed so ZIP would make no difference.

Not really. How many people use bzip2?

BTW where do you get it form?

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\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills  Staffs  England     /\/\/\/\/
/\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org      www.phaedsys.org \/\/\
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Well I'll try and create one with this top post.

Quick - look >> Tom Lucas wrote:

Not quite - pdf files *may* already be compressed. They don't have to be.

But the correct way to reduce transmission times is to make sure that your pdf's *are* compressed, or to use transparent gz compression at the http level. That way everyone should be happy!

He means that bzip2 compresses better than gzip. Howver 7-Zip (which uses LZMA) compresses better than bzip (which uses Burrows-Wheeler block transforms ahead of conventional compression).

Howver it's not a straight choice due to the time and space complexity of decompression.

Lots of open source software? You aren't likely to see .bz2 things in the MS Windows as sphere as generally people will want to distribute stuff in a form which someone doesn't require the recipient to install extra software. This generally means Zip compatible compression.

and 7-Zip can be got from

7-Zip is useful as the GUI program for Windows will deal with compression of Zip, GZIP and BZIP2 archives as well as decompression of a large variety of other formats.

-p

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"Unix is user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are."
 - Anonymous
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bzip2 has been a standard for compression for many years, but it is little known in the windows world. This is mainly because of the fundamental difference in philosophy of how problems are solved in the windows world, and how they are solved in the *nix world - with windows (stemming from single-tasking DOS), you have a single program doing lots of things, and with *nix, you have lots of programs doing single things. Thus windows users are used to "zip", which takes lots of files and squashes them together in one archive. *nix users are used to "tar", which combines lots of files in an archive, and "gzip" or "bzip2" which compress a single file. These are often used together (as "tar.bz2" or "tgz" files, for instance), but not necessarily.

bzip2 is slower but tighter than the compression algorithms used in zip. For comparison, the source for linux-2.6.21 is 42 MB as a .tar.bz2, 52 MB as a .tar.gz, 67 MB as a .zip, 237 MB unpacked, 140 MB on an NTFS compressed directory. (gzip and zip use similar compression techniques, but with .tar.gz and .tar.bz2, the compressor can re-use sequences from any of the original files.)

Of course, any sort of extra step to unpack your pdf's before viewing them is an inconvenience - mod_deflate on apache will give most of the bandwidth benefits of compression without that hassle.

For handling archive and compressed files of all sorts, the best tool (to my knowledge) is 7zip:

mvh.,

David

Only to a FOSS Devotee

It appears that bzip2 does not run on windows,. So it is pointless to say it is a good idea as most of the target developers are going to be on windows. We may not like that but that is the reality.

Several people suggested 7-Zip

Which runs on multiple platforms.

However to reach the maximum number of people ZIP is still the best format.

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\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills  Staffs  England     /\/\/\/\/
/\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org      www.phaedsys.org \/\/\
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SO it is pointless for NXP to use it as they want it *easily* available to the maximum number of users. The majority still develop on windows hosts

Thanks. Looks good. However until you can be sure that the majority of your audience has 7-zip the standard zip will still be the preferred format for most companies.

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\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills  Staffs  England     /\/\/\/\/
/\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org      www.phaedsys.org \/\/\
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Yes, it is pointless for NXP to use bzip2 for their files there - it is pointless for them to use *any* compression for pdfs or other single-file downloads.

And it makes sense to use zip if you are offering collections of files (like sample code) to people - it is a format supported by virtually all systems, and familiar to all potential users.

You use .tar.bzip2 files when it makes sense in the context. If NXP provides pre-packaged ucLinux setups for their ARM processors, for example, then those would be .tar.bzip2 files, since that is the natural format in that context.

Absolutely. Although the .7z format is tighter even than bzip2, it seldom makes sense to use it unless you are desperate to save space - most people use 7-zip for "zip" files. Although 7z is a good format, well-documented and free of any sort of restrictions on use or implementation, it is simply not familiar enough to people to make it a sensible choice for distribution.

You've misread or misunderstood something here - there are plenty of bzip2 implementations for windows, both the original command-line version, gui wrappers (like 7-zip), and libraries for use in your own code. It's just that bzip2 is a natural part of any *nix system, and unfamiliar to most windows users. It is because of familiarity, and therefore ease-of-use, that zip is a more sensible choice (if compression is needed at all) - not because of technical reasons like unsupported platforms.

Yes, using 7-zip to create or open zip files.

... snip ...

Lots. Don't remember. I have had it up here for at least 5 years. Google will probably turn it up. BTW, it's another free open-source program. :-)

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                        cbfalconer at maineline dot net

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Not so. All it requires is mounting a 70k file. Done.

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                        cbfalconer at maineline dot net

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Nonsense. I use it daily.

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                        cbfalconer at maineline dot net

If one wants to make an uncompressed PDF, he should explicitely tell it to almost any PDF-generating program available.

Yes, it is possible to produce an uncompressed PDF. But they are not produced by default and there is little reason to make them.

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Well, there are people who will listen when you tell them that there is brake fluid leaking and that they might crash over the cliff. And then there are those who don't listen...

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

In an email I got Michel Claassens actually asked for feedback. He did not give his email address and Google doesn't have it either. So I guess they really do not want feedback.

Years ago I wrote to Jan Timmer (then the big man at Philips) about what I see going down the tubes, with some suggestions. No answer. Now they auctioned off the semi biz and it gets even worse IMHO. Oh well, there are plenty of other suppliers for semiconductors.

Or as the economists say, you can lead a horse to fresh water but you cannot force it to drink.

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

Poppycock.

If you'd bothered to even look at the download section of the website you would have found

Which is a pointy clicky installer for the Windows commandline executables.

bzip2 itself is implemented as a library which can be linked to by anthing that wants to support bziped data.

Which uses the bzip2 library in order to be able compress and decompress .bz2 files in addition to it's native .7z format.

Remember MS Windows didn't have built in Zip support until XP and there are still big corporates running significant numbers of Win2K boxes. In order to reach them you'd have to supply a CAB file or something.

-p

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"Unix is user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are."
 - Anonymous
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At risk of following up to myself, it's not an installer it's the commandline bzip executable itself.

Obviously many MS Windows users wouldn't know what to do with it.

-p

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"Unix is user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are."
 - Anonymous
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Chris, with all due respect, the NXP Site is still dead in the water. I don't know what's so difficult about that: When you design a web portal you need to test it will _all_ browsers, including older versions. Not with just with one.

Think about NXP's clientele: They are not kids. They are engineers who must live with whatever browser the IT guys at their company had installed. And they do not care at all about Flash, glitz or any of that. Give us the facts, meaning datasheets, and throw the rest in the trash. Seriously.

I would suggest to copy this and other posts and give them to your boss.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

Here's the reply to an e-mail I sent through their web site's support link:

*** Please do not reply to this message ***

If you have a follow up to this question please go to :

snipped-for-privacy@specinst.com

======================================== || Answer to Question 70715 from NXP Semiconductors || 06/19/07 (00:45:06) || ||

======================================== Andy Peters On above date you submitted question with ID 70715

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Question: FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD:

Dispense with the Flash menus.

Dispense with the Flash movie and the guy with the chainsaw.

Your target audience is a bunch of engineers who have zero patience for any of the fluff.

No Flash. Please. Your competitors don't do Flash.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- NXP Semiconductors answer: Dear Andy,

Thank you for your input. The intro movie with the chainsaw has been removed. Apologies if it caused any annoyance.

With kind regards, Matthijs van Veen