Download size is 470 megabytes...why?

Community
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I was just about to download KiCad (Windows) and noticed it was 470 megabyte download.

Why on earth is it so big? It’s probably including 10,000 things I don’t need. Wouldn’t it be a nifty idea to not force the user to download things they will never use, and instead include a “package manager” that reaches out to github to download additional packages when they need it? In contrast, the 64 bit Eagle windows download is 87 megabytes, and installs to 407 megabytes. Similar problem I’m sure, excessive libraries normal people don’t use often.

Just a thought. Feel sorry for people not on high bandwidth connections.

Regards,
Mark

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Not a developer, so not sure. But for what it’s worth the .deb file in js-reynaud’s ppa (for Debian-based distributions, https://launchpad.net/~js-reynaud/+archive/ubuntu/kicad-4/+packages) is 12MiB, but doesn’t include library or documentation.

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I’m downloading it now, but it’s 427 megs (correction, not 470) but that is just crazy. I’m sure it contains all the visual parts for all the known library parts. Nothing else makes sense.

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Also a shot in the dark, but I have distributed some cross-platform software in the past. Usually moving from Linux to Windows, I had to roll up the Wx GUI, python, etc. into a fat Windows binary where the Linux systems had many of the local dependencies already. This would definitely be true of the Ubuntu builds.

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So, in order to install it needs:
1 gig for “Footprint” stuff
300 megs for base product
105 megs for all language help files
1.4GB total install. wow. Sure, hard drive space is cheap. But wow. :slight_smile:
Cheers,
Mark

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Yet when some libraries are left out of default packages, as happens on Ubuntu, people complain.
You cannot win :persevere:

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Yeah that’s what it is! Windows is packaging statically linked dependencies like you said, which includes wx, python, etc., but also OCE, which is used for the 3D viewer and is really hefty.

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On ubuntu its more like 18MB kicad plus 120MB libraries. Blame windows philosophy of every-possible-library-included-in-the-installer.

While you play with kicad you might want to try solidworks or altium. Those are really light pieces of software.

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Lol thats pretty funny. But what i am getting at is there are two models with installshield type installers. Package everything in one download or package minimal as the download then during install give the user options to select what they want to install and download those during install. This is great for language or features such as chip or part device packages.

I shouldnt have to download the entire Pic part catalog since i will never use it.

Just food for though.

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I used to use diptrace and the 3d models themselves were around 13 gigabytes. Only 1 gb for footprints seems tiny!