Re: Bug#696154: cloud.debian.org: Please install 'less' by default on official Debian AMIs.
2012/12/17 Clint Byrum <spamaps@debian.org>:
> Excerpts from Christopher Gervais's message of 2012-12-17 13:01:54 -0800:
>> I have to agree with Thomas here. Anything beyond the bare minimum is a
>> slippery slope. I'd suggest that any debates about including optional
>> packages should happen on debian-boot@lists.debian.org, rather than here.
>>
>
> How is it a slippery slope if it is driven by data?
Because it isn't lean, when are the bloat stop? Why not install Apache
and them NX and then GCC and then Erlang and then ....
> Seriously, figure out a way to ask users what they want. popcon isn't
> going to be all that useful here becuase of the wild diversity of systems
> that exist in popcon. But you can certainly just ask users to list any
> optional packages that they'd like to see on images. Or have a subset
> of popcon just for cloud images.
Popcorn is the best we have, and is actually what Debian users uses.
Some users want drupal and some want wordpress. Some want mysql,
others postgress. This IS a slippery slope.
> Anyway, purity is fine and dandy, but what you're suggesting is basically
> to give people a skeleton on which to build their images, instead of
> images on which to run their cloud based applications.
Proper automatic installation goes from minimal to full through
installation of packages.
> Also, consider that all packages downloaded from a mirror are going to
> be metered in some way by most clouds (EC2 for sure). But images are not
> metered. Given the rapid create/tear-down nature of cloud instances and
> workloads, I'd say this purity may end up *costing users money*.
Seriously? What are then the cost of copy the "bloated" image around?
There should not be that much transfered when you install, so the cost
should be minimal. Unless you need to install lots of software, in
which case the savings still are minor, and prob. you needed to
transfer software you didn't need in first place. Back to original
question, if you want an more "bloated" image, you should add
packages, not remove them. Debians installation infrastructure are
designed to add, not remove packages.
Yours, Anders Jackson
Reply to: