Re: [NEWS] status of boot-flopppies
> >
> > I am speaking of a complete official distribution. If you don't have some
> > of the cd's this is obviously a problem, but in my opinion a multicd
> > distribution should not be splitted. If you need a lite distribution you
> > should burn a new cd with a different Packages.cd.
>
> ...and that CD should also be "Official" so this means more space on image
> mirrors, etc. etc.
I don't consider this a real problem given the tendency in harddisk size.
> Maybe the other way around is more maintainable: Official CDs have _no_
> Packages.cd files for other CDs, and if you really want a one-CD install, feel
> free to do it yourself.
This is also my opinion. One who wants to make his own distribution should
be able to create also his Packages.cd files.
> > I'm not sure but I believe that Packages.cd is needed only by dpkg. If I
> > remember correctly apt-cdrom should use only the Packages files found in
> > the various directories.
>
> That's what I thought. And it makes this whole discussion senseless since
> apt-cdrom will be the main (only?) install method used, and you _will_ have to
> insert all CDs during the package scanning. Packages.cd file is used only by
> dpkg-multicd, which is obsoleted by apt-cdrom.
The cd-swapping can be avoided if we put the /var/state/apt/cdroms.list and
the list files of the official cd's into the first cd and store the labels
and hashes of all the cd in a config file. In this way the cd-swapping is
required only if one really needs a package in the second or third cd.
I have done this for a single-cd automatic distribution (insert the cd, type
install and let the installation go by itself) and I don't see why it can't
be done also for a multi-cd distribution.
This would make possible to define a `newbie' default installation requiring
only packages on the first cd and with most configuration questions answered
with default values. This would make the whole debian installation much more
easier for beginners.
--
Massimo Dal Zotto
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