I have some points we could/should discuss after the upcoming ISO is finally released. So this are things which affect eventually 2009.04. a) Number of different ISOs/Images: We have currently 10 different mediums to install Arch Linux. I like to reduce them for better and easier building and maintenance. Archiso based mediums are both installation and Live-CD mediums. IMHO a user who will install the system uses such a ISO/Img only once, for the installation and maybe to correct errors during installations. These users like small ISOs/Images. For users who would use the mediums for ex. as Live-CD/Maintenance we offer to few tools and programs on this ISO. Another point is the ISO bootloader. We have add already isolinux cause grub has boot problems on a not so few count of PCs. My suggestion on this is: For the core/ftp CD-ISOs we use only isolinux as bootloader. This will boot on all PCs and these mediums a mostly used only for system installation. So we also could keep them small. The USB-Images still should have grub as bootloader (I currently don't know if iso/syslinux work on them and we never have a reported problem about USB images and grub). Also i like to see a combined i686/x86_64 medium, as we produced one for the FrosCon-ISO. The necessary framework is already available for archiso. This ISO/Image has naturally a bigger size. My idea is now to full-fill the remaining space on a cd with programs which are usefully to use this mediums as a base maintenance ISO - for both architectures. And on this we should use grub as ISO bootloader cause we need/benefit here from grub's flexibility above isolinux. Doing this (and using isolinux for core/ftp-ISOs) we would end in a medium count of 9 different mediums (4 x CD-ISOs, 4 x USB-Images, 1 combined). That is still a big count... Other think-games: - Kicking core or ftp. Both alternatives have disadvantages: ftp is small and offers a up to date system during/after install. Core gives a bootable systems also when no internet access during installation. But we will end in a medium count of 5. - Also offer combined mediums (i686 and x86_64) for each core/ftp ISO and USB image. Disadvantage: the download size for each medium is greater, so one who would only install Arch Linux have to download many Megabytes he probably not and never need. But this would reduce medium count also to 5 but we could have separate core and ftp installs. b) Release "branding" Should we have release names? Should we have the release versions (ex. 2009.02) in the splash screens (grub, isolinux) and maybe in /etc/issue? Background is: User should be able to identify which ISO release he currently uses. Having the release version only on ISO/Img-File is sometimes not enough. Release naming is "neet", but are we able/willing to think about nice names? Document the release versions in splash screens/shell overview is quiet easy, but we have to automate this by a script. Otherwise these changes will be surely forgotten sometimes.... c) Installer switch IMHO we are common to try aif as the next installer. So testing should begin closely after 2009.01/02 release. That's also a reason why i would not fix each minor thing or add features to current archlinux-installer for 2009.01/02 if we maybe kick it next months. d) Accessibility support on install mediums There were a discussion on arch-general about that (and the needed tools and modifications sounds not a big work), Aaron brought up an idea with additional speak output, so this supports not only braille reader users. We must see if we could at this support smoothly into the current mediums or if maybe a separate ISO is needed. e) Testing and documentation IMHO we should document such things as archiso's work-flow, HowTo for ISO/image building and releasing steps. Also things like torrent setup etc. And improve our (pre)testing procedures to avoid such things like grub-gfx error on x86_64 in the future. This have to be found on our side before public testing! But i think we all have learned much during the process of releasing 2009.01/02 what crude things could get broken. And that Murphy is still alive ;-) OK, these are the things I mean which await us next releases, we should mention about. Of course we/you will found more... Gerhard