Bug#561734: Hints how to decrease size of installer
Package: installation-reports
Image version:
http://people.debian.org/~joeyh/d-i/images/daily/netboot/mini.iso
Date: 2009/12/19
I did experiment to maximally decrease size of the installer and results
are:
file name - original size - optimized size - difference - %
initrd.gz - 6404938 B - 6127255 B - 277683 B - 95.6%
setup.exe - 280420 B - 250724 B - 29696 B - 89.4%
splash.png - 6329 B - 5687 B - 642 B - 89.9%
mini.iso - 9390080 B - 9082059 B - 308021 B - 96.7%
dpkg_1.15.5.4_i386.deb - 2166906 B - 2026557 B - 140349 B - 93.5%
How I did the optimization:
initrd.gz - recompressed with 7zip (7z a -tGZip -mx=9 initrd.gz initrd)
setup.exe - compressed with UPX (upx --lzma --ultra-brute setup.exe)
splash.png - optimized with advpng (advpng -z -4 splash.png)
mini.iso - only estimated size
dpkg_1.15.5.4_i386.deb - control.tar.gz and data.tar.gz recompressed
with 7zip
The initrd can be compressed even more with XZ. "xz -9 -e initrd"
produces file with size 4660512 B, i.e. 72.8% (and for mini.iso -
7615316 B, which is 81%).
The dpkg_1.15.5.4_i386.deb produced with XZ has size 1250000 B, which is
57.7%.
My personal opinions:
1. Using of 7zip is "compatible way" so it can be used with minimal
changes to build system and it can allow to place 5-10% more packages on
the installation CD.
2. XZ will be big step forward :-)
TonyMi
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