Re: full CD installer, non netinst

["Thomas Schmitt" <scdbackup@gmx.net>]

Hi,

Joseph wrote:
> > Question: does 
> >     "debian-11.0.0-amd64-xfce-CD-1.iso"    <  700 MB
> > exist?

Andrew M.A. Cater and Steve McIntyre wrote:
> No [because too fat for a 650 MB CD]

It's not the first time that this came up.
My best idea for making a smaller ISO with XFCE is in
  https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2021/09/msg00438.html
where i propose to get a DVD-1 ISO and to strip it down by a xorriso run
which derives a new ISO from it:

  xorriso -indev debian-11.0.0-amd64-DVD-1.iso \
          -outdev my_new_debian_11.iso \
          -rm ...paths.in.the.ISO... -- \
          ... more -rm commands ... \
          -boot_image any replay

It is a matter of try and error to see which list of paths in the ISO can
be given without spoiling the capabilities which you need. I assume that
you can delete lots of packages under /pool/main .

After mounting debian-11.0.0-amd64-DVD-1.iso as /mnt/iso

  find /mnt/iso/pool/main -exec ls -ld '{}' ';' | sort -n -r -k 5 | less

yields weighty candidates like

  -r--r--r-- 1 root root 129753796 Jan  6  2021 /mnt/iso/pool/main/f/fonts-noto-cjk/fonts-noto-cjk-extra_20201206-cjk+repack1-1_all.deb
  -r--r--r-- 1 root root 99180540 Jan  5  2021 /mnt/iso/pool/main/g/gnucash-docs/gnucash-docs_4.4-1_all.deb
  -r--r--r-- 1 root root 72427756 Dec 30  2020 /mnt/iso/pool/main/f/fonts-noto/fonts-noto-extra_20201225-1_all.deb

The 300 biggest .deb files sum up to ~ 2.5 GB . That would leave about
1.3 GB of remaining ISO size. One would have to remove at least 750 .deb
files to reach 800 MB, and more than 600 for a 900 MB CD medium.
(Probably more, because some of the large .deb files will be needed for
the desired functionality.)

Given the substantial length of the paths, i'd write the xorriso -rm
command lines into a separate file "my_debian_11_rm_list" like

  -rm /pool/main/f/fonts-noto-cjk/fonts-noto-cjk-extra_20201206-cjk+repack1-1_all.deb --
  -rm /pool/main/g/gnucash-docs/gnucash-docs_4.4-1_all.deb --
  -rm /pool/main/f/fonts-noto/fonts-noto-extra_20201225-1_all.deb --

In above xorriso example i'd then replace

          -rm ...paths.in.the.ISO... -- \
          ... more -rm commands ... \

by

          -options_from_file my_debian_11_rm_list \

(A good kill list in that file might be interesting for others who want to
address small USB sticks.)


Have a nice day :)

Thomas