In Fedora 41, `/usr/bin/firefox` is a script that invokes `/usr/lib64/firefox/firefox`. But there is also a `/usr/lib64/firefox/firefox-bin` binary of identical size, but different contents. Why? This seems an artifact of history. Mozillabug 658850 suggests firefox used to be a script that ran firefox-bin (it still is on MacOS X?), and Mozilla kept both rather than making symlinks to avoid bugs with Mozilla updates. But Fedora's firefox package doesn't do in-browser check for updates and never seems to invoke firefox-bin. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Run /usr/bin/firefox 2. Search process tree for firefox-bin 3. Run lsof /usr/lib64/firefox/firefox-bin 4. Run /usr/lib64/firefox/firefox-bin --new-instance & Actual Results: Normal firefox operation doesn't involve the firefox-bin binary. Expected Results: Maybe /usr/lib64/firefox/firefox-bin is unnecessary in Fedora. This is a minor thing but it's been confusing users for years, and besides the extra 500kB on-disk, it takes time to build. I looked at a huge firefox x86_64 build.log and it copies dist/bin/firefox to dist/bin/firefox-bin twice, but again my /usr/lib64/firefox and firefox-bin binaries differ and `ldd shows the same libaries at different addresses. (Edited: tiny comment fixes.)
Yes, we don't need firefox-bin, it's just a copy of firefox binary. Not sure why it's here.
thunderbird has the same issue: /usr/lib64/thunderbird/thunderbird-bin is the same size as /usr/lib64/thunderbird/thunderbird , but the binary differs and the library offsets are different. Mozillabug 697218. (In reply to Martin Stransky from comment #1) > Yes, we don't need firefox-bin, it's just a copy of firefox binary. Not sure > why it's here. If you remove firefox-bin from the spec file would it no longer be installed? Mozillabug 658850 comment 12 has patches to remove the -bin file from the build, though they don't seem to remove the intentional copy of $(MOZ_APP_NAME) to $(MOZ_APP_NAME)-bin in browser/app/Makefile.in. I haven't figured out what modifies one of the binaries slightly after this copy. I noticed the firefox.1 man page in the package is wrong, it describes firefox-bin instead of firefox. I filed bug 2342756.
Do you mind to post updated spec file here? Thanks.
I removed firefox-bin from firefox.spec in my fork, https://src.fedoraproject.org/fork/skierpage/rpms/firefox/c/b2858cc12f0dc153ab86932aef1a38130624b7ad?branch=rawhide
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Issue is still present, even on latest rawhide builds.