[arch-dev-public] will DVD size be the limit for our official repos?

[Aaron Griffin]

On 7/12/07, eliott <eliott at cactuswax.net> wrote:
> > I just want at least one opinion to be heard on this.. I routinely
> > install machines that have no (and can have no) internet access. I
> > mirror onto those machines the full set of Arch repositories (lately
> > including [community] too). The reason is because we don't yet know what
> > we will have to do when we set up these machines, and we need the whole
> > toolkit at our disposal.
> >
> > So there is at least one office full of people operating this way on
> > some machines, not because they want to but because they have to.
>
> Hey. Here is an idea.
> Keep the installer the same, and create a 'packages' dvd or something
> like that. With just packages on it.
> People can mount it AFTER the install and specify it as a repository.
> No need to complicate the installer build cd, nor any reason to start
> shipping these huge install dvds when people *dont* need them.
>
> As to difficulty making such a dvd.. it is freakin trivial.
> Create a directory.
> Have a file with packages listed in it.
> Use a shell script to have pacman download the packages into that
> directory (download-only option).
> Create the dvd based on that directory.
>
> No need to make it bootable or whatever. bam.

This is almost exactly where I (?Did I say this one outloud, or did I
just think it?) was going to go with this.  The requisite feature is
"having a hard copy of packages" which can be done hundreds of
different ways and _not_ on the installer itself.