On Wed, 10 Jun 1998, Andreas Jellinghaus wrote:
> a) 5 cd set : source, misc, and 3 binary cds.
> misc + binary will be enought for every architecture, so
> distributors can sell cd sets of 2 cds (or 3 with source).
> b) 4 cd set : highly integrated.
> it will not be possible to split the m68k or alpha part of,
> but this will save us one cdrom.
I tend to favor the "highly integrated multi cd" solution. Reasons:
- Most of the overhead for cd vendors goes into things like order
registration, postage and packing. The cost of a couple of silver discs
is quite negligable. You can put up to 6 cd's in a single jewelbox.
- The amount of debian-{alpha,mk68,sparc,mips,arm,what-next}-only cd sets
that vendors expect to ship will probably not be high at this moment.
This might cause them to not ship the other architectures or put a much
higher price tag on those cd sets. Even if the alternative sets are
made by the ftp.cdrom.coms, Infomagics and whoever else forwards
their stuff into the retail channels, the cd sets still have to make it
to the individual "main street" pc- and bookshop's shelfs.
- Clearly showing support for many architectures is good Debian exposure.
- If I had a cd with Debian on it for an architecture that I don't
have at home, but of which I knew that there is such a machine at work
or school or whereever I can get to it, I will attempt to convince the
owner/administrator to try Debian.
<MODE start-rant-away-into-the-blue>
Instead of the two-cd's-without-source, I'd rather see a special
lightweight _single_ Debian cd for i386 that carries:
- Ten different alternative kernels to boot off, suiting various hardware
needs. This would be a big improvement over the current situation,
where people complain that RedHat/Slackware's floppy does boot and
Debian's does not.
- Only small parts of the main distribution and full source of the
included binaries. The devel stuff needed to rebuild all those sources
should be included in the binary part of course. Kernel source should
also be included.
- A decent on-line documentation tree that can be read with a webbrowser
on a Windoze computer before actually attempting to install Debian.
- A tiny live-filesystem on the cd, think of no more than 50 to 100
megabytes.
- Has to be just enough to have a "skinny standard" linux running, to
show your friends (or yourself) that it runs on your pc before going
ahead and take repartitioning any harddisks.
A small step before the big leap.
- Uses ramdisks to mount / and eg. /home on or alternatively:
* Can use parts of a dos filesystem to put umsdos filesystems on.
A dos filesystem can also hold a swapfile.
* Can also be installed entirely to a umsdos filesystem on your
dos filesystem.
The latter options would make it possible to try it a couple of times,
keeping basic network setup and other required configuration like
modules and passwords stored.
- Provides an excellent base system for installation! It has mc, emacs,
vi, ae, gcc, lynx, useful network clients and, depending on the size
that's available, a small webserver. Everybody can find his/her
favorite "essentials" on it.
- Is also the ultimate rescue disk.
A cd like this, with approximately 250 meg binaries, 250 meg sources, 40
meg documentation, 10 meg kernels and a 100 meg live filesystem would
make an excellent "cover cd" for computer magazines.
Any takers? I'd love to work with some people on a little project to have
this working for 2.1.
</MODE>
Cheers,
Joost
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