Re: Debian DVDs

[Ian Eure <ieure@debian.org>]

On 3 Jul 2001, Jakob 'sparky' Kaivo wrote:
> 
> Tony Godshall <tg@of.net> writes:
> 
> > Seriously, all I want is media big enough to install the
> > base system.  Once I have networking, I apt-get the rest.
> > Even media a distribution or two behind is fine, given how
> > effective apt-get dist-upgrade is (esp. with a small
> > install).  Sure I get most of my packages from stable but I
> > generally need to get something from testing or unstable
> > anyway, and even from stable, I want the stuff with the security 
> > updates!
> 
> This is how I install machines at work, too. However, that is *at
> work*, where we have an OC-3. Unfortunately for me, and billions (US
> billions, 9 zeroes) of other people in the world, the best Internet
> access available at home is v.90. That's right, 56k. It's not an
> option to move somewhere with better bandwidth, and I can't drag my
> box to work and back whenever I want to do a mass update (read
> dist-upgrade). It can sometimes be faster to get a CD via next-day
> shipping than it is for me to wait for apt to download everything I
> want to install. This is especially true with home machines, where it
> is not uncommon for one to want GNOME or KDE, which are no small
> beasts. Until everyone has massive bandwidth to the garage, media is
> going to be needed.
> 
> > How odd... when I went shopping yesterday for a replacement
> > for my trusty old slink cdrom, all I found were 3-cd sets!
> > All I want is enough to get to networking.
> 
> Try the compact floppies. Only three disks.
> 
> > How about the opposite extreme of a release DVD: A release-
> > agnostic CD that runs right off the CD, lets you enter a
> > distrib mirror site and your chosen distrib and then runs a 
> > network-based install of stable, testing or unstable straight 
> > off the net (via ramdisk perhaps).  
> 
> That's actually a pretty cool idea, for those places where a net
> install makes sense. Could even be one of those credit card CD
> thingies: keep it in your wallet, just in case. ;)
> 
except it's already been done. http://www.markybob.com/elf has a debian
2.2r3 "netinst" cd image, which is a 33mb iso with just the base debian
system and no other packages.

i386 only, but still very useful.

oh, and you can mail-order business-card sized cd-r blanks from
http://www.cdr-by-mail.co.uk, though the site seems to be down atm.