Topic: compressed ISO images

[Dan Whitehead]

Some of us live in parts of the world were telco costs are metered and a fractional leased line approaches USD1000 a month.  It certainly would be nice to see ~.iso.gz or ~.iso.bz2 .

[Gordon Rowell]

Dan Whitehead wrote:
>
> Some of us live in parts of the world were telco costs are
> metered and a fractional leased line approaches USD1000 a
> month.  It certainly would be nice to see ~.iso.gz or
> ~.iso.bz2 .

We used to compress the images, but far too many people had trouble uncompressing them, or found that they were uncompressed by their browser automatically.

Also, our mirror sites can update far more efficiently if they make use of the 'rsync' protocol, which is disrupted by compressing the images. If you load rsync up on your end, you will find the savings in download are far greater than the effect of compression.

Finally, we have a form on www.e-smith.com where you can ask for a CD to be sent to you.

Gordon

[jms]

But can't you put two copy's of de iso on the server, one compressed and the other not.

[Gordon Rowell]

jms wrote:
>
> But can't you put two copy's of de iso on the server, one
> compressed and the other not.

We have tried, and people download BOTH

It also just adds to the amount of disk space used by each of our mirror sites and still has all of the problems mentioned in my previous posting.

Gordon

[Carl Enset]

One option is to use the Rusty Russell hacked up gzip --rsyncable option.

This helps to solve the mirrors rsync'ing files, though it still leaves the usability "issues".

http://lists.samba.org/pipermail/rsync/2001-January/003511.html

[Wei]

Many have asked for compressed iso's.

e-smith iso's have been smaller (uncompressed) than full-sized 'vanilla' Linux distro's, so it's not such a big deal for mirror sites (if it is, other, larger mirrors
will do the job instead).

With all due respect, when a group begins to stop hearing/listening to what its users - with all their foibles - say they want... well, let;s just say:  it's not a good sign of what could be just around the corner...

The cost of a few hundred megabytes of storage is trivial... others have made good arguments for compression

If keeping them in the same directory as the uncompressed iso's confuses some, then -either- add messages to each directory (telling them to take the one they like, not both) and refer any questioners with confusion to them.

Don't condemn everybody to a choice of rsync -or- larger iso's

Open Source is about giving people more choices... -and- about giving people what they want... not what a company might - in its wisdom (or otherwise) might like to give them...

If -your- server space is in short supply, so remove 3.1 or 4.0 and sneak a compressed 4.1.1 into a separate folder...

Go ahead... make us even happier!  

Simple, eh?

[Steve MacGregor]

...and I am sure that one of us out here in the open source world would even be willing to host it for free because it is the least we could do to thank you for producing such an extraordinary product!

Steve MacGregor - souped@home.com
-netbuilders - sales@nbuilders.net
-damascus linux center - damascus-linux@home.com

[sam russo]

Wei's comment is both timely and true.
E-smith is a great product  and I've been unable to download the newer larger iso's. Please keep supplying us who live in areas where bandwidths are too small the opportunity to keep up with the latest e-smith boxes and not have to look for other solutions.
Listen to your users!!!

[Dan Whitehead]

Hello,

Could you point me to the form on the *.com site that you had mentioned, and will they mail a disk to Indonesia?

It may seem a trivial issue on your end, but here in Indonesia it not hard for the person who manages the petty cash till in a small office to choose between downloading an ISO image and a $2.50 copy of NT.  I would be preaching to the converted to say that the choice seems obvious because it does.  However its hard to sell free software when you are competing with stolen.

As far as users who have trouble getting from a compressed image to cd it would not be an act of genious to tease them through a tutorial before you feed the a url.  You could probably do it with one or two middle pages.  

4.0 is still working well in the three places I have used it so far so I am content to stick with that untill someone can post a compressed image on thier ftp server

[Paul Miller]

Hi forum,

I agree with Dan,

I think a compressed image would be a good thing even if published on an obscure development page located on just one mirror, serving a region with greatest need, dedicated to the last stable version and supported solely by a single partner.  I (along with 98% of the US population) also struggle with dialup limitations.  Perhaps there are many ways to turn lemons into lemonade:-)

Dan Whitehead wrote:

> However its hard to sell free software when you are
> competing with stolen.

Has anyone on the forum used bootnet to kickstart e-smith 4.1.1 without a CD?

I wish for the following install mode.
----
HOWTO PROJECT
e-smith distribution appliance

1) Put an iso image on a e-smith box any way you can.

2) mount the image -o loop where it can be accessed via http

3) bootnet from floppy and DHCP on prospects machine to install.

When updates occur, rsync the iso.
----

Unfortunately, I am having a problem with step 3.  

The installer complains

"The %s procedure requires a kickstart file to be present.  Please insure that you are using the proper e-smith boot media, and restart the computer."

However, the last 3 lines at Alt F3 shows kickstart files (install.cfg,mirror.cfg,upgrade.cfg) as copied
 
The last line on Alt F4 shows
<6> raid5 personality registered
---

Once I find what I missed in step 3 I hope to create a e-smith distribution appliance miniHOWTO for the HOWTO page:-)

I saw a post that said kickstart is available but unsupported by e-smith. Given this is open source may I assume that bootnet as contained in e-smith 4.1.1 is either standard RedHat or the e-smith changes thereto are published?

Any feedback or help from the forum is appreciated.

Best Regards,
Paul Miller