Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Alec Berryman <alec@×××××××××.org>
To: gentoo-dev@g.o
Subject: [gentoo-dev] Summary: Install CD Bloat thread
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 00:08:57
Message-Id: 1061510935.2407.7.camel@localhost.localdomain
1 Install CD Bloat Thread Summary:
2
3 Kurt Lieber started off the thread:
4
5 "I've used the same installation CD for most of my gentoo installs over
6 the past few months, so I was shocked today when I realized that the
7 smallest install ISO that we currently offer (at least for x86) is
8 80MB. When I started with Gentoo, it was ~15MB.
9
10 What brought about the nearly six-fold increase in size for our basic
11 installation CD?"
12
13 The first culprit pointed out was vim. Many said that they would not
14 need vim, or even vi, to edit their /etc/make.conf. Others said that
15 because vi was a UNIX/Linux/POSIX.2 standard, it needed to be on the
16 CD. Although no compromise was reached, it was generally agreed that
17 vim should be replaced by a smaller vi clone, perhaps nvi (the standard
18 BSD vi) or vi itself. Aron Griffis pleaded that no substandard vi
19 clones be considered. Several people asked that no tools duplicate
20 functionality, such as nano and vim. The thread degeneraged quickly.
21
22 Another culprit for the increase was the inclusion of Perl 5. No one
23 could figure out a good reason for it to be on there.
24
25 Sven Vermeulen asked if links would be kept or replaced with lynx.
26 While lynx is smaller, it does not display tables or frames. Links is
27 more difficult to configure with a proxy. Stewart Honsberger suggested
28 that lynx go on the minimal cd (see below), while lynx go on the larger
29 CDs.
30
31 Stuart Herbert suggested the use of cloop, which should be in portage in
32 less than a week.
33
34 Chris proposed three CD sets: an minimal install CD with a stage1
35 tarball, a large LiveCD with common UNIX tools and a GUI, as well as a
36 full GRP CD. Luke-Jr replied that the new InGen LiveCDs would fit as
37 the "large LiveCD", but thought that there would not be enough space to
38 also use that as a base for the full GRP CD. Stuart Herbert and others
39 asked for the minimal install CD to be less than 55MB in order to fit on
40 keychain USB devices. Others wanted the minimal install CD to size down
41 to the original 16MB. Another idea was for each user to generate his
42 own custom LiveCD through a set of scripts.

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Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-dev] Summary: Install CD Bloat thread Owen Gunden <ogunden@××××××××××××.edu>
Re: [gentoo-dev] Summary: Install CD Bloat thread Karsten Schulz <kaschu@×××××××××.de>
Re: [gentoo-dev] Summary: Install CD Bloat thread Stuart Herbert <stuart@g.o>