Validity of the CD size limit nowadays [Re: Features/ArchitectureSupport - changing what we build for]

[Jeremy Katz]

On Monday, February 02 2009, drago01 said:
> On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 3:21 PM, Jeremy Katz <katzj at redhat.com> wrote:
> > On Sunday, February 01 2009, drago01 said:
> >> On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 12:10 AM, Wes Shull <wes.shull at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 3:26 PM, Olivier Galibert <galibert at pobox.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> 8Gb USB stick, which can hold bootable dvd contents, $15.  Your turn.
> >> >
> >> > So we're leaving the developing world to Ubuntu now?
> >>
> >> They can/have to use the x86 livecd anyway for their older system.
> >> We are talking about moving the x86_64 live spin to a DVD.
> >
> > The problem then is that there are more configs to maintain.
> 
> Sure but how much extra work does this add? We can reuse the same
> kickstart files and add/remove packages where it makes sense.
> As for testing both need to be tested anyway.

It's a fair bit of extra work because now you have to be thinking about
what to substitute in, what you lose by not going with a specific
package, and a slew of other things.  It's not just "add more junk"
because in that case, you'd end up with some duplicates that make the
experience _less_ good
 
> >And in
> > point of fact, the x86_64 images were larger than CD-sized for a few
> > releases and there were more than a handful of complaints from people
> > wanting to use them on x86_64 boxes with only CD drives.
> 
> Any pointers to those complains ? This shouldn't be an issue for the
> majority of x86_64 boxes (and no I don't talk about boxes without
> optical drives).
> If there are same rare cases with such hardware they still have the
> liveusb option if they don't want to buy a dvd drive/burner.

Go back and read the mailing list and forum archives.  I certainly
wasn't the person pushing it (hell, CDs themselves haven't mattered to
me now in a long time), instead, I just was the person that heard all of
the complaints.

And it's not just about DVD *readers*.  It's also about relative pricing
of media and scarcity of writers

Jeremy