[arch-dev-public] Additional Package ISOs

[Jason Chu]

On Fri, Sep 28, 2007 at 01:59:00AM +0200, Damir Perisa wrote:
> Friday 28 September 2007, Aaron Griffin wrote:
>  | * A small script which constructs a repo from a list of packages,
>  | then runs mkisofs on it. This would allow users to very easily
>  | create a CD or DVD full of packages THEY want.
>  
> +1
> maybe in addition to the script, if the downloading needs to happen at 
> school (windows, mac!) it is maybe helpful to provide in addition an 
> easy xsl(mozilla) or java tool for this (platform independend). or we 
> provide the script in all platform versions. or the script is run by 
> webinterface and the iso file is generated on the server a priori to 
> downloading it.

-1 on the xsl or java tool at least initially.  I'm not going to write it
or maintain it... it will have to stay in sync with all the other code we
have in pacman.

>  | * One or two officially built ISOs (CD? DVD?) using the above
>  | tool, with some nice utilities and tools, etc.
>  
> -1 
> if this huge thing is going to be shared over the server. using 
> decentralised sharing is ok by me (torrents). otherwise, it will eat 
> up our traffick, since users are downloading such things just to have 
> them... and if they are rebuilt every day or every time the repo is 
> updated, a pkg is updated or every week, i'm sure some users would 
> like to download every version, no matter if they use it. 
> 
> humans like collecting nice shining things ;)

Having a new package DVD that comes out the same time as the install CD is
just fine by me (maybe not for bugfix install CDs).

>  | * Perhaps a combination of the two, and a bootable "OMGHUGE" DVD.
> 
> hmm... i'm undecided if we need a big bootable image. usually, having 
> a CD full of material is more than enough to get started. then you 
> can just mount the "OMGHUGE" medium to access another repository on 
> your already running system.

I don't mind non-bootable repository DVDs... most other distros do that and
you don't really need all the packages available when you're making your
initial install.

> instead i have a conter-proposition: we need a prespecified repo on 
> optical drive in pacman.conf (e.g. /media/mobilerepo/os/i686 or 
> something like this) and then this huge additional medium has the 
> repo at exactly this place. i think with a medium label kept unique 
> and HAL you can make it mount automatically and always 
> at /media/mobilerepo

I do mind automounting the medium to a special place.  If someone needs to
mount a repo DVD, there should be instructions somewhere and it shouldn't
be very hard to do anyway (1. edit /etc/pacman.conf 2. mount DVD).  Doing
something special to access this DVD in a different place is a bad idea.

Jason
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