Solved CD ISO Archive Size i386 Installer

[LibreQuest]

I have a question for the archive maintainers. Why is the i386 CD image so large?

I don't have CD-R media large enough to burn the image.

Anyone know why this is the case?

 

[Beastie7]

I would presume because the size of the base system is larger than the capacity of your average CD. if you're using VMs and don't need the extra stuff that, say, dvd1 includes; then a CD image (which is just the base system) would make more sense. Given how accessible USB thumb drives are; I don't know why we still have these kinds of images. But I digress.

This old release announcement should give you some perspective.

 

[LibreQuest]

I still use older hardware that uses CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, Zip, Floppy, Superdisk and IDE interfaces. So I am very glad when there are images to burn to disk.

But thank you for the information.

 

[msplsh]

Yeah, cutting down the packages to get the disc1 to fit doesn't seem to be a priority for the FreeBSD team.

What's the difference between disc1 and dvd1 installer image?

'dvd1' is much bigger than 'disc1', what's the difference?

forums.freebsd.org

Use bootonly, I suppose.

 

[SirDice]

Disc1 doesn't contain packages. None. I think it was 8.0 when they stopped putting packages on disc1.

disc1

This contains the base FreeBSD operating system. It also supports booting into a "livefs" based rescue mode. There are no pre-built packages.

 

[msplsh]

Ok, weird. What's taking up so much space, then, compared to bootonly?

 

[SirDice]

The actual OS archives. Bootonly doesn't have any, it only contains the installer and that 'live' filesystem, everything else is downloaded.

 

[msplsh]

So, two copies of everything versus one.

 

[LibreQuest]

It is good there is boot only. It would be nice to have a packages only disk. There are, at times, internet access limitations. And considering the typical file size limitation of burnable media, it would be nice to have everything needed for a working system on disk for setting up an offline system.

EDIT: I say this understanding there is a zero probability that this use case would actually influence the archive packaging process since it's such a niche situation. I just pine for the days of burning an iso to disk and being able to fully configure a system sans internet connection.

 

[SirDice]

It would be nice to have a packages only disk.

There used to be a disc2. But that ran out of space at some point too. Even the DVD image doesn't contain everything, only a selection of packages.

And considering the typical file size limitation of burnable media, it would be nice to have everything needed for a working system on disk for setting up an offline system.

What's stopping you from downloading the packages you need and burning them on a CD yourself? I'm pretty sure if there still was a disc2 people would moan about how it doesn't contain the packages they want/need.

 

[LibreQuest]

There used to be a disc2. But that ran out of space at some point too. Even the DVD image doesn't contain everything, only a selection of packages.


What's stopping you from downloading the packages you need and burning them on a CD yourself? I'm pretty sure if there still was a disc2 people would moan about how it doesn't contain the packages they want/need.

The size of the disk image is what's stopping me. That's why I started this thread.

EDIT: I've just realized you asked about packages. Right, there is nothing stopping me. Excellent point.

 

[smithi]

It is good there is boot only. It would be nice to have a packages only disk. There are, at times, internet access limitations.

And nearly permanently so
in some places away from wealthy-world wired cities, nowadays seemingly almost impossible to imagine by the developers who primarily determine what's released.

And considering the typical file size limitation of burnable media, it would be nice to have everything needed for a working system on disk for setting up an offline system.

That too is seen by some who tend to track leading-edge development mode as unworthy as a goal, saying such systems will be out of date as soon as installed.

The corollary is that working systems are far easier to update and maintain than building one from base plus disparate bits and pieces - or at least, I find it so, trying to remember when I knew next to nothing at first.

Personally I'm glad that we have people surfing the bow wave; they are essential to progress and stability, but those who expect everyone else to live their lives in that fashion have huge influence.

EDIT: I say this understanding there is a zero probability that this use case would actually influence the archive packaging process since it's such a niche situation.

I'm not so sure it's just niche, but we'd have to put in quite a bit of work and time to do so, in the face of opposition.

I just pine for the days of burning an iso to disk and being able to fully configure a system sans internet connection.

Me too, and there are a few old dogs who feel the same, as various threads on questions@freebsd.org over the time attest.

That said, base FreeBSD really has grown to the point where what was once possible with a 4-CD set would now need 2 DVDs with a decent set of packages.

The largest component of the distribution set on disc1 is the sources, at 170MiB compressed. Without them I believe a real CD would still work, and nothing else depends on them directly.

Anyway, sorry, TL;DR more detail on space used etc in my message - and the surrounding thread (amd64 only) is here:

Re: 12.4 disc 1 iso is really large

Also particularly this
follow-up by Dan Mahoney

cheers, Ian
(adjusting flame-proof suit)