Ubuntu Studio Minimal ISO

[Erich Eickmeyer]

Hi Steve,

Responses in-line:

On 7/24/24 13:20, Steve Langasek wrote:
> Hi Erich,
>
> Before I would be willing to sign off with my Release Team hat on the
> addition of another variant image, I would need some clarification about
> what exactly the intent is here.
>
> Xubuntu made the case for a minimal ISO because Xubuntu itself targets
> systems with lower specs; having a minimal image that is targeting
> particularly low-end systems that might otherwise not be supported is a
> tangible goal.  (The initial Xubuntu minimal images weighed in at 1.8GiB -
> fits on a 2GB USB stick, is potentially netbootable with the mini.iso on a
> system with less memory than others, etc.) Meanwhile, the Ubuntu Studio ISO,
> at 6.8GiB, is the largest flavor image that we ship.  It should be clear
> what niche a "minimal" version of an Ubuntu Studio ISO is expected to fill
> before we commit the resources to building and hosting it.
>
> $ sudo apt install --install-recommends ubuntustudio-desktop-core
> [...]
>    Space needed: 3755 MB / 72.2 GB available
>
> Continue? [Y/n] ^C
> $ sudo apt install --install-recommends ubuntustudio-desktop
> [...]
>    Space needed: 8417 MB / 72.0 GB available
>
> Continue? [Y/n] ^C
> $
>
> It's not straightforward to translate these numbers into ISO sizes, but
> while it makes sense to have multiple install profiles on a given ISO,
> having a complete second ISO only makes sense if reducing the resources
> needed by the installer itself (download size?  size of install media?  boot
> speed?  minimum memory requirements?) are going to make installing
> accessible to users that it wouldn't otherwise be.
>
> In particular, my understanding is that, without any of the applications
> pulled in from the main desktop metapackage (and the domain metapackages -
> photography, etc), the ubuntustudio minimal desktop is effectively just a
> KDE desktop.
This is imprecise. It's a KDE Plasma desktop that is heavily customized 
and as such has a custom menu for Ubuntu Studio-specific software. 
Additionally, it has custom entries related to kernel and memory 
optimizations installed by the `ubuntustudio-lowlatency-settings` 
package. This more would have to be done besides merely installing 
`ubuntustudio-desktop` on top of `kubuntu-desktop`. Besides the desktop 
environment, Kubuntu and Ubuntu Studio have nothing else in common and 
even disagree on some of the KDE packages.
> And to get any of the actual applications (the real
> "Ubuntu Studio-ness")
Again, the actual "Ubuntu Studio-ness" is in the optimizations of the 
configurations and the theming that sets it apart from Kubuntu. We have 
our own branding and philosophy for the desktop, much of which was taken 
from Xfce when we transitioned from that back in 20.10.
> after installing from an Ubuntu Studio minimal image
> would require an apt install of them from over the network.  So what
> advantage would an Ubuntu Studio minimal image give (for the user; for the
> broader Ubuntu ecosystem) over installing from a Kubuntu image and then 'apt
> install ubuntustudio-desktop-core ubuntustudio-audio kubuntu-desktop_'?

We have often been told that people don't want the entire kitchen sink 
installation. Back in the 18.04 and prior days, there was a plugin in 
ubiquity that allowed for custom selection of the tasks or metapackages 
(I have forgotten which one) to be installed so that, for instance, a 
graphic designer wouldn't have the audio tools, or a video editor 
wouldn't have the publishing tools, etc. That ubiquity plugin became 
problematic and had to be removed, so for quite a few years we've had 
nothing but the full install. With `ubuntu-desktop-bootstrap` and the 
layered images, we can once again do the minimal installations, and then 
users can customize the installation after-the-fact using 
`ubuntustudio-installer` to get exactly the metapackages they need. 
`ubuntustudio-installer`, as you recall, is a GUI app that installs the 
metapackages. We have a philosophy that if a GUI method to do something 
can exist, it should. We don't want users to dive into the terminal if 
they don't need to.

This brings us to a minimal ISO. If one only wishes to only have what 
they need, then why couldn't we do the same to reduce download size for 
users while also giving them the ability to customize their install for 
what they need and not what they don't need? For instance, in a 
front-of-house live audio mixing desk, you wouldn't need the video 
editing suite, but you'd certainly need the audio and music production 
suite. Someone putting music lyrics on a projection screen or images on 
an LED wall might want the video production and graphics suite, but they 
wouldn't necessarily want desktop publishing or the audio suite.

All that said, a minimal ISO has been an often-requested feature from 
the community over the years as people have often wanted the Ubuntu 
Studio branding and pre-tweaked/optimized goodness without the download 
overhead of the applications included with the entire suite, which, per 
your numbers, more than doubles the size. Granted your numbers don't 
translate to an ISO size 1:1 since it's pre-squashfs-compression and 
what not, but it's a decent indicator of what to expect.

I hope that clarifies and helps you to understand the vision. Thanks for 
your time and attention!

-- 
Erich Eickmeyer
Project Leader - Ubuntu Studio
Technical Lead - Edubuntu