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

[Paul Mattal]

Aaron Griffin wrote:
> 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.

This even helps handle my "it's still hard to come up with a set of 
packages you want and test that that set works" problem for your 
"lite" set (or my "lite" set). You can keep a wiki page around with 
a list of packages on it. People can contribute ideas; as people 
hone the package set, we capture that feedback.

People can then easily copy those packages to a CD or DVD for 
installation.

This is truly the promise of lightweight package grouping. All you 
really need is a list of package names in a text file.

- P