Re: RELEASE discs & ISO images (for future)

From: Ken Smith <kensmith_at_cse.Buffalo.EDU>
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:16:57 -0400
On Wed, 2008-03-12 at 08:50 +0000, Vadim Goncharov wrote:

> I currently have no 7.0 ISOs to look at (and ftp.freebsd.org contains just
> symlink to all available packages, not only disc1). But I remember perl,
> linux and xorg on the disc1 from 6.2 times, yes. And actually the most needed
> things are just perl and linux ABI, not heavy Xorg which can be moved to
> disc2 - it 

Disc1 contains all the packages necessary to get to the "Would you like
to browse the pre-built packages" menu in sysinstall without needing to
switch discs (which is desirable for novices as well as being able to
complete that portion, not bother selecting packages in the menu, and
thus not need disc2/disc3).  That includes xorg because it's one of the
things that can be chosen in the "Software Distributions" section.  I'm
planning to change that with 8.0, no longer offering to have anything
that's not part of the baseline system installed until you get to the
"Would you like to ..." menu.  That will reinforce to people that that
stuff really is packages/ports and it will make things like the monthly
snapshots less of a hack (I don't include any packages on those so you
get odd results if you select "All" in the Software Distributions menu
for example...).  But I didn't have a chance to get that stuff done for
7.0.


> > The question is:  What does the majority of users want?
> 
> Attraction. Ability to say "Wow! Their CD is SO handy, many
> features on just one disk". Don't forget about advocacy and
> opinionating new users.

In my opinion the above setup (being able to make any of the selections
we offer in the "Distributions" section and complete an install without
needing to switch discs {provided you opt out of selecting packages from
the packages menu}) is what benefits the most users.  I could be wrong
but this is one of those things that it's impossible to satisfy everyone
all the time so a decision needed to be made and that was it.  I *hope*
I can merge the livefs stuff back in to disc1 by eliminating Xorg from
the "Distributions" section (and the offer to install Linux as a
separate thing - let them select that from packages as well).  But that
just wasn't possible for 7.0.  We'll see if it can happen for 8.0 (and
as pointed out in this thread the base system seems to continue to grow
so we'll see :-).


> I've suggested above - just Xorg can be moved, perl and linux ABI are not
> so big.

That causes even more disc shuffling pain than we have now.  Disc1
currently contains both Gnome and KDE.  Trying to move Xorg to disc1
means one of them needs to be moved to another disc, the three won't
fit.  And so many packages are intertwined among those three things the
disc switching becomes way worse.  As things stand now if you select
"All" in the software distributions section everything from disc1 will
wind up being installed before you get to the Packages selection menu so
it will never ask for disc1 again.  If you then just select Gnome or KDE
disc2 goes in and it never asks for disc3.  However if you select
anything more than Gnome or KDE things go downhill fast.  But nowhere
near as fast as if all of either Gnome or KDE were not on disc1.

Yes, we need to make sysinstall smarter about the order it installs
stuff in.  But I spent some time fiddling with the current layout given
what I had to work with as far as meta package sizes and ISO image sizes
go and this wound up being the least painful (note I don't claim
painless).

What I hope to shoot for with 8.0 is a CD-sized thing named "disc1" that
is much like the monthly snapshots - no packages at all on it.  If
possible at the point we're near 8.0's release given sizes livefs will
be merged back onto it.  I'll have trimmed out the stuff sysinstall
offers to do before reaching the "Would you like to browse pre-built
packages?" menu so you don't get odd failures if you select
something-or-other and no pre-built packages are available at all.  And
in addition to that CD-sized "disc1" we'll have a DVD-sized thing that
includes everything on disc1 plus some set of pre-built packages.

-- 
                                                Ken Smith
- From there to here, from here to      |       kensmith_at_cse.buffalo.edu
  there, funny things are everywhere.   |
                      - Theodore Geisel |


Received on Wed Mar 12 2008 - 16:17:06 UTC

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