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Re: how many CDs for v3.1 r3?



On Mon November 13 2006 12:23, anonymous wrote:

> I still have not received a definitive reply to my question as yet.
> Which, to repeat was:
>
> " I found out that I would need to download 18 CDs: 15 regular and 3
> for the update.
> I would like to know whether all these CDs have binary files or are
> these also include CDs
>  with sources and documentation. If so, which ones of them?"

Sorry I can't answer that question well. It's been a while since I looked at 
the debian install cd's. I can tell you that the packages are placed on the 
cd's first by need (kernel's etc) and then popularity. When I installed from 
cd I always grabbed the first two cd's (three if I had time) and that took 
care of most of what I used. I also had deb sources in 
my /etc/apt/sources.list and anything I wanted to install that wasn't on my 
cd's would get installed over the net although in 80% of the cases I already 
had what was needed.

The debian archive has become much larger lately though (something like 18000 
packages) so it has become somewhat harder to manage without a network 
connection. I do my downloading now on one machine and copy the contents 
of /var/cache/apt/archives to another computer if need be (be sure not to 
delete deb's after download if you go this route).

> Having used Redhat and Slackware before which just use 4 CDs each for
> the boot and
> packages and a couple more for the documentation and sources, it is
> difficult for me to take
> 15 CDs for the installation of packages alone.

> IF this *is* really the case, there should be some good reason for
> this: Does debian offer a
>  lot of packages choices? Lot more than does either slackware or redhat
> so as to need this
>  much number of CDs?

I don't use cd's anymore. I have 2 DVD's for sarge and 3 for etch. After the 
initial install I proceed with X, KDE and Gnome. With sarge I use a handfull 
of packages from DVD 2. Once I'm done I have 1800 packages installed, so 
there are a lot of packages in debian, many you will never have time to get 
too, if they even interest you.. :)

> OR the .deb packages are not as much efficient and do not use good
> compression to squeeze them all in a fewer CDs?

I'm not sure what .deb packages are made of, but I'm pretty sure they are at 
least on par with .rpm.

> > That said, a list of which CDs contain which packages would still be
> > useful.

It is a good idea. I don't know if it exists (yet). Not a very authoritative 
answer but that's how I see it.. :)



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