Iso image size

Iso image size

[Gábor Boskovits]

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I don't know what we are currently doing to get the installer iso image
sized down, but I caught some discussion yesterday on irc, that the image
is actually very well compressible, and checking the sizes it really is.

Might that be possible to do something like compressing the root filesystem
image on the iso image, and decompress it from initrd before mounting?

Or do we already do that?

It might worth consideration, if that makes the image fit onto a CD.

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Re: Iso image size

[ng0]

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Gábor Boskovits transcribed 1.3K bytes:
> I don't know what we are currently doing to get the installer iso image
> sized down, but I caught some discussion yesterday on irc, that the image
> is actually very well compressible, and checking the sizes it really is.
> 
> Might that be possible to do something like compressing the root filesystem
> image on the iso image, and decompress it from initrd before mounting?
> 
> Or do we already do that?
> 
> It might worth consideration, if that makes the image fit onto a CD.

Are there any reasons why we should really consider CDs a target
in 2017-almost-2018?

I threw away around 500 CDs + 100 floppy disks with backup data of the
last 20 years quiet recently (and only kept originals).
All I'm getting here (West Germany) are BluRays and similar opticals.
And I predict that even this will go away in the near future.

So why focus on the artifical size of optical disks, especially a
format that has been considered old by most if not all other distros
above the size of tiny distros?

If this may sound like harsh criticism: I'm only curious.
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Re: Iso image size

[ng0]

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ng0 transcribed 2.2K bytes:
> Gábor Boskovits transcribed 1.3K bytes:
> > I don't know what we are currently doing to get the installer iso image
> > sized down, but I caught some discussion yesterday on irc, that the image
> > is actually very well compressible, and checking the sizes it really is.
> > 
> > Might that be possible to do something like compressing the root filesystem
> > image on the iso image, and decompress it from initrd before mounting?
> > 
> > Or do we already do that?
> > 
> > It might worth consideration, if that makes the image fit onto a CD.
> 
> Are there any reasons why we should really consider CDs a target
> in 2017-almost-2018?

I do understand the need to keep the image small. Despite what public
image wants to sell about the region I'm living in, the download speed
still sucks (I'm personally on ADSL 1600).
I think we should take size in consideration for people who don't have
the benefit of flatrate internet connections or even DSL connections.

Personally I think we could take 4GB as a limit, that's the smallest
size of USB Disks you can get these days. Unless there are computers
without USB (I got rid of one last year) that would have a CD drive
instead.
Options, choices.. difficult to serve everyone right.

> I threw away around 500 CDs + 100 floppy disks with backup data of the
> last 20 years quiet recently (and only kept originals).
> All I'm getting here (West Germany) are BluRays and similar opticals.
> And I predict that even this will go away in the near future.
> 
> So why focus on the artifical size of optical disks, especially a
> format that has been considered old by most if not all other distros
> above the size of tiny distros?
> 
> If this may sound like harsh criticism: I'm only curious.
> -- 
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>   WWW: https://n0.is



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Re: Iso image size

[Manolis Ragkousis]

Hello,

On 12/08/2017 10:37 AM, ng0 wrote:
> So why focus on the artifical size of optical disks, especially a
> format that has been considered old by most if not all other distros
> above the size of tiny distros?
> 
> If this may sound like harsh criticism: I'm only curious.
> 

2 things come to my mind:

1) cds are still cheaper than dvds or blurays.
2) It's easier to find a cheap cd/dvd player than a cheap bluray player.

Manolis

Re: Iso image size

[ng0]

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Manolis Ragkousis transcribed 0.4K bytes:
> Hello,
> 
> On 12/08/2017 10:37 AM, ng0 wrote:
> > So why focus on the artifical size of optical disks, especially a
> > format that has been considered old by most if not all other distros
> > above the size of tiny distros?
> > 
> > If this may sound like harsh criticism: I'm only curious.
> > 
> 
> 2 things come to my mind:
> 
> 1) cds are still cheaper than dvds or blurays.

I believe you. Then this would be a classic case of
regional differences. I got strange looks last time I wanted
to buy raw CDs and a CDR/CDRW burner (or even CD-only player).
DVD is the closest thing to CD here, they go for what CDs used to
be sold here.

> 2) It's easier to find a cheap cd/dvd player than a cheap bluray player.
> 
> Manolis


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Re: Iso image size

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello,

Gábor Boskovits <boskovits@gmail.com> skribis:

> I don't know what we are currently doing to get the installer iso image
> sized down, but I caught some discussion yesterday on irc, that the image
> is actually very well compressible, and checking the sizes it really is.
>
> Might that be possible to do something like compressing the root filesystem
> image on the iso image, and decompress it from initrd before mounting?

Wouldn’t it be complex and memory-intensive?

To me the efforts should go into reducing the size of our packages.  For
example, in ‘core-updates’, guile, glibc, and guix are already
noticeably smaller; likewise, the recently-introduced ‘groff-minimal’
allowed us to get rid of Perl in the installation system closure.  We
should keep working in that direction IMO.

Ludo’.