Re: Net image far too big
I think the single net floppy is dead, too, unfortunately.
A single net floppy would have to either:
(1) Contain all the modules necessary to set up networking, or
(2) contain another retriever (eg floppy) to get any unusual ones.
Both of these are killed by usb, pcmcia and floppy modules; we will need
USB for either case, for USB networking devices or for USB floppy
drives. It won't fit based on the current size issues.
If we do succeed in slimming down code, then we still have the mess of
different proceduces for i386 and {alpha, powerpc, etc}. archs, as they
will be different in layout.
Finally we have a problem with "keytimer". For USB keyboards, either the
keyboard stops functioning when the USB Host Controller is loaded, or
when the kernel booted (depending on BIOS). So for such systems we need
a method of loading kernel + usb + input modules without keyboard usage.
The boot-floppies method was a cmdline prompt "keytimer", which gave the
user a prompt to change the floppy within n seconds, then loaded the
second floppy. We need to do something similar.
Because of all this, I recommend that we go to a kernel floppy + initrd
floppy solution, with USB modules on the initrd floppy.
This also should give us the space to have i18n in the net floppy case.
- Alastair
On Mon, 2003-04-14 at 15:15, Chris Tillman wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 14, 2003 at 09:24:04AM +0200, Tollef Fog Heen wrote:
> >
> > The net image is by far too big to fit on a floppy. We need to fix
> > this somehow:
> >
> > System stats for net
> > -------------------------
> > Installed udebs: di-utils-shell rootskel anna main-menu cdebconf-udeb udpkg busybox-udeb dash-udeb kernel-image-2.4.20-1-386-udeb choose-mirror net-retriever netcfg-static netcfg-dhcp pump-udeb modutils-basic ethdetect nic-modules-shared-2.4.20-1-386-udeb socket-modules-2.4.20-1-386-udeb isa-pnp-modules-2.4.20-1-386-udeb nic-modules-2.4.20-1-386-udeb
> > Total system size: 2.7M (840K libs, 628K kernel modules)
> > Initrd size: 890k
> > Kernel size: 666k
> > Free space: -116k
> > Disk usage per package:
> > 8148 B - 16 blocks - 4 files used by pkg di-utils-shell.udeb (version 0.19 )
> > 11372 B - 24 blocks - 2 files used by pkg nic-modules-shared-2.4.20-1-386-udeb.udeb (version 2.4.20-7 )
> > 12226 B - 20 blocks - 4 files used by pkg main-menu.udeb (version 0.027 )
> > 13520 B - 16 blocks - 2 files used by pkg net-retriever.udeb (version 0.016 )
> > 14444 B - 20 blocks - 2 files used by pkg udpkg.udeb (version 0.012 )
> > 36740 B - 64 blocks - 7 files used by pkg ethdetect.udeb (version 0.23 )
> > 36833 B - 44 blocks - 3 files used by pkg pump-udeb.udeb (version 0.8.14-2 )
> > 39650 B - 56 blocks - 6 files used by pkg netcfg-dhcp.udeb (version 0.22 )
> > 41186 B - 52 blocks - 5 files used by pkg choose-mirror.udeb (version 0.012 )
> > 43421 B - 60 blocks - 6 files used by pkg netcfg-static.udeb (version 0.22 )
> > 53577 B - 56 blocks - 3 files used by pkg socket-modules-2.4.20-1-386-udeb.udeb (version 2.4.20-7 )
> > 62886 B - 88 blocks - 11 files used by pkg anna.udeb (version 0.026 )
> > 70321 B - 80 blocks - 3 files used by pkg dash-udeb.udeb (version 0.4.16 )
> > 74932 B - 84 blocks - 2 files used by pkg isa-pnp-modules-2.4.20-1-386-udeb.udeb (version 2.4.20-7 )
> > 90596 B - 96 blocks - 2 files used by pkg modutils-basic.udeb (version 2.4.21-2 )
> > 135657 B - 160 blocks - 12 files used by pkg cdebconf-udeb.udeb (version 0.35 )
> > 151544 B - 164 blocks - 3 files used by pkg busybox-udeb.udeb (version 1:0.60.5-2 )
> > 279203 B - 376 blocks - 31 files used by pkg rootskel.udeb (version 0.27 )
> > 454910 B - 504 blocks - 16 files used by pkg nic-modules-2.4.20-1-386-udeb.udeb (version 2.4.20-7 )
> > 795024 B - 792 blocks - 3 files used by pkg kernel-image-2.4.20-1-386-udeb.udeb (version 2.4.20-7 )
> >
> > So, what to remove? isa-pnp-modules? What else? We can save some
> > space by stripping the locale out of rootskel, but that would suck
> > since then net installs would be ASCII-only.
>
> Such a shame wasting all this time on this. For powerpc, we need one
> floppy just for the kernel, there's no chance for 1 floppy anyway.
> In my view, our users will appreciate a smoothly working CD install
> much more than a 1-floppy limited-hardware bare bones install.
>
> --
> http://Www.TruthAboutWar.org
>
> Chris Tillman
> - Linux Rox -
--
Alastair McKinstry <mckinstry@computer.org>
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