Executables in the Linux binaries are not stripped
The executables inside the GHC binary tarball seem to come with debug information. Stripping it noticeably reduces the binary sizes:
$ file /path/to/ghc-7.8.2/lib/ghc-7.8.2/bin/ghc
/path/to/ghc-7.8.2/lib/ghc-7.8.2/bin/ghc: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.26, BuildID[sha1]=0x6012a4c86cd3f410ca0e59ab4ac872ce740d03c6, not stripped
$ du -sh /path/to/ghc-7.8.2/lib/ghc-7.8.2/bin/ghc
1,4M /path/to/ghc-7.8.2/lib/ghc-7.8.2/bin/ghc
$ strip -s /path/to/ghc-7.8.2/lib/ghc-7.8.2/bin/ghc
$ du -sh /path/to/ghc-7.8.2/lib/ghc-7.8.2/bin/ghc
1021K /path/to/ghc-7.8.2/lib/ghc-7.8.2/bin/ghc
$ du -sh /path/to/ghc-7.8.2/lib/ghc-7.8.2/bin/haddock
3,2M /path/to/ghc-7.8.2/lib/ghc-7.8.2/bin/haddock
$ strip -s /path/to/ghc-7.8.2/lib/ghc-7.8.2/bin/haddock
$ du -sh /path/to/ghc-7.8.2/lib/ghc-7.8.2/bin/haddock
2,3M /path/to/ghc-7.8.2/lib/ghc-7.8.2/bin/haddockDo we really need to include the debug info for exes?
Edited by Thomas Miedema