On Saturday 20 November 2004 08:19, David Fletcher wrote: > It has occurred to me that there must be a better way to distribute a > package of software such as Fedora Core, so I thought I'd post my thoughts > and see what others think of them. > > Firstly, when I had finished downloading the ISO files for FC3, I had loads > of trouble getting them to burn onto media in such a way that they would > pass the media check. Fortunately I had recycled the CD-RW media I > originally used for FC1, so it was just a case of erase and try again. But > many others went onto CD-R, which probably then went straight into the > rubbish bin therefore helping to deplete the remaining space available in > landfill sites. Time youn bought a new burner. I can think of only one coaster I made with my liteon burner; that was a tarball I burned to the disk and I'm sure the burn was okay; I diteched because I thought it would be too confusing to use. Recently I got an LG DVD burner, and with that I had problems with old (slow) CD-RW media that dated back to my SCSI Yamaha 4x4x16 burner. > > Secondly, after installing FC3 then running up2date, it seemed that many of > the packages included in the ISO files were already out of date before the > distribution was made available for download. This, in effect, wastes all > the CDs used to burn ISO files, even the ones that did pass the media > check, and doubles the download time for all the packages that are already > out of date. <Shrug> Same if you install any softwware including Windows. > So how about the Fedora team giving this idea some thought? Don't pack > everything into ISO files. Create the next Fedora distribution as a single, > much smaller file, which could be put onto, perhaps, a USB flash memory > device. This device, when booted, would then load up the installer as disk > 1 of FC3 does, then perform all the information gathering functions for > package list, language, keyboard and location, partition and format the > HDD, and finally transfer all the gathered information to the HDD and set > up a yum.conf file for local mirror sites based on the location provided. > > Then reboot the machine, which automatically downloads and installs all the > latest packages from the mirrors, resulting in an immediately up to date > installation with a fraction of the download time. Shore. I'm on dialup. I can download stuff at work and carry it home on CD, DVD or 40 Gb USB drive.. Downloading lots at home is not realistic. Also, this won't work very well for those who sell (or buy) cheap CD & DVD copies. -- Cheers John
