[RFC] unified i386/x86_64 install media.

[Chris Adams]

Once upon a time, Dennis Gilmore <dennis at ausil.us> said:
> rather than ship 2 dvds one for i386 and one for x86_64  we would ship one dvd 
> that has the package set for both arches.  they would likely only have the 
> packages for a desktop install on them we would need to have both arches under 
> 2.4GiB, you could choose your own adventure by enabling the everything repo.

Well, since there is some overlap (there are still some "core" 32 bit
packages included on the 64 bit DVD for multilib), the limit isn't
exactly 2.4G.  Also, it seems that with a little work, you could use a
single install image (always a 32 bit userland, with minimal 64 bit
libs, and a 32 or 64 bit kernel as appropriate), which would save some
space.  It might be nice to have a 32/64 combined netinst/rescue image
in any case.

I just dumped the F12 i386 and x86_64 DVDs in a directory and hardlinked
them, and I get 5.2G.  If the install image and repodata were unified,
you would be too far off from it fitting.

> syslinux would need to be able to detect the arch to install

Somebody said that there's already a SYSLINUX module that allows you to
choose a different menu file based on the CPU type.

> and likely also 
> have a flag to force 32 bit

That just needs an extra menu option for the 64 bit menu that loads the
32 bit kernel.


Or, you just make the combined image for dual-layer DVDs, Blu-Ray, or
USB flash drives only.

-- 
Chris Adams <cmadams at hiwaay.net>
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.