CDs DVDs or netboot. Oh my!

John Reiser jreiser at BitWagon.com
Thu Oct 11 02:47:52 UTC 2007


> So the real question is what do we 'suggest' our default install be?
> 
> 1) Live CD: Can't upgrade, do package selection or specify install method.

Why can't a system that is installed from the Live CD be upgraded?
What would it take to make such an installation upgradeable?
I believe it is reasonable if the upgrade is possible, even if it
requires a separate step after initial installation from Live CD.
[Specifying install method and package selection is a natural for the
Rescue CD; see #3 below.]

> 2) DVD: isn't live (duh :)  but requires DVD burner and drive to do
> installs.

In the "first world" a DVD burner is $50 or less and a DVD reader is
$30 or less.  In other places (or if those prices are a serious barrier)
then share through a user group or a buddy, or postal mail, etc.  Seriously.
The isolated boxes with no DVD also tend to have anemic network connectivity.
Five CD images take a *week* at dialup speeds (I know, I created F7 CDs
and spoon fed them to somebody at 33.6Kbaud.)

I would like to see a step-by-step method with explanation for doing
an install from a DVD.iso on a separate partition on the same machine,
and over NFS from another machine that has DVD.iso (unpacking the .iso
beforehand is not allowed.)  I believe that the current directions
for these cases are too glib.

> 3) boot.iso: a little too advanced for causal users, etc.

For the suggested default, I favor network install booted from the Rescue CD.
Please make the Rescue CD available separately, at least for official Release.
In the test series for Fedora 8, particularly the torrents, the Rescue CD
was "bundled" with the DVD.  This bundling defeats the size advantage (120MB
vs 3GB.)

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