CD optimization

[John]

Colin Watson wrote:

>On Sat, Sep 18, 2004 at 01:28:00PM +0000, John wrote:
>  
>
>>Colin Watson wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>On Sat, Sep 18, 2004 at 11:16:29AM +0000, John wrote:
>>>      
>>>
>>>>I can see how it would be a customisation headache, but deboostrap
>>>>as implemented is that.
>>>>
>>>>What makes the tarball so much more difficullt than the
>>>>non-customisable package list?
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>It's completely trivial to customize. You can drop
>>>/.disk/base_include and /.disk/base_exclude files onto the CD.
>>>      
>>>
>>I don't see that in any debootstrap package I've ever installed, 
>>including the Ubunto version.
>>    
>>
>
>It's implemented in base-installer, not debootstrap.
>  
>

Oh. I said debootstrap, you said debootstrap ....


>  
>
>>>debootstrap really is the Right Answer to all sorts of questions, and
>>>it's therefore an essential component of the installer. The solution to
>>>problems encountered with it is to improve debootstrap and the code
>>>around it, not to throw it away.
>>>      
>>>
>>remember any time that gets saved by users gets multiplied out to 
>>enormous numbers.
>>    
>>
>
>Remember that the base system installation is the point where any
>non-control-freak user goes off and gets a cup of tea. A few seconds
>simply are not important enough to kill maintainability here. We've gone
>to a fair amount of effort to speed up the base installation as it is;
>throwing out debootstrap is *not* a place I am prepared to go.
>  
>

So far, I keep coming back to find it waiting with some silly Q instraid 
of getting on with it. Or congratulating me on my wonderful acquisition, 
or something.

I don't think many installers will inderstand (I don't) why it cant do 
the whole install before rebooting. Other distros do, and I read a 
review of Caldera some years ago in which the reviewer said it didn't 
reboot at all.



>  
>
>>You might be releasing new images frantically now, but that won't always 
>>be the case.
>>    
>>
>
>Look at our release schedule sometime :-)
>
>  
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>>A tool that exposes the content of a CD image and updates those contents 
>>& contructs a new CD might work well.
>>    
>>
>
>That's not good enough for the release builds.
>
>  
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releases don't normally need patching. Daily builds, the other extreme, 
should be able to be built mostly from what users already have - an 
earlier build, new boot floppy image and updated packages.

That load I might be able track by modem. In contrat, when I tried to 
rsync an ISO it got destroyed.