On Fri, 4 Oct 1996, Markus Illenseer wrote:

>  Seeing it your way, you could even unpack all tar-archives.  Then the user
> is able to install NetBSD or even use it by simply copying the required
> tree. This way I could save the user unpacking tar and gzipped archives.
> 
>  But then I have altered the distribution and must take the responsability
> for it myself. This wont help me or the NetBSD-community.

Well, my thought was actually to save space, since you've got only
about 1.3 GB to play with (assuming two CDs). Unpacking the archives
wouldn't help at all (except if you wanted to run it directly from
CD-ROM).

As I said, I don't know if the current install scripts will install
from base12.tar.gz as well as base12.aa, base12.ab, etc. However,
I forgot to mention my way around that; just make a symlink base12.aa
-> base12.tar.gz and your problems are over.

>  The other thing is, that a CD is perfect for BBS-use this way.  Let that
> be BBS or ftp-server, just mount the CD and there you go (even though one
> might think, it will be better to copy the CD onto hard drive, because
> CD-ROM drives tend to be slow and costy).

I don't find this argument convincing. First, even over a 28.8K
modem I find it easier to download one 8MB base12.tar.gz than 35
individual 240K files. Second, even if it did benefit the users of
BBSes and the like, given the choice between benefitting them, or
benefitting a bunch of people who actually shelled out money for
the CD and have it in their hot little hands, I'll take the latter.
I know you're non-profit, but even so, sales are important, and
selling three copies to three users is better than selling one copy
to one BBS owner, in terms of you being able to continue producing
this CD.

>  I for myself don't see a reason to alter the original set by reducing the
> redundancy, but by enhancing it.

Well, it's a matter of space. If you could produce an infinite
number of CDs, you'd have a point. But given that we probably want
an unpacked source tree, two unpacked binary trees (for two bootable
disks), thirteen packed binary trees, binaries for X for all the
platforms that have them, and a selection of other essential tools
(tcpwrappers, ssh, perl, etc.), it's going to be a bit tight as it
is, I think.

Keep in mind, of course, that this is just my considered opinion.
If lots of other people with money tell you to do things otherwise,
don't hesitate to follow them. :-)

>  I am not sure how to acomplish this task - two bootable systems on one CD
> using one session.  I take it that the Sparc port is able to boot of CD-ROM
> as well?  How would you give the option to boot from a second session on
> the CD?

I have no idea. I'm not even sure if it's possible. I just put it
out as an idea, in case it might be.

> > While you're at it, why not drop obj symlinks in all of the source
> > directories pointing to /usr/obj, so that someone who doesn't want to
> > use a union filesystem can still do a compile from the CD?
> 
>  I am not sure if I understand you. You want me to do:
> 
>  cd /mnt/futurecdrom/usr/src/usr.bin/yes/
>  ln -s /usr/obj obj

No. The easiest thing is to go into your source tree (either put it under
/usr/src or set BSDOBJDIR=/usr2/netbsd/src or whatever you're using), and
type `make obj'. That will do what we want.  Essentially, it links:

	/usr/src/		-> /usr/obj
	/usr/src/bin		-> /usr/obj/bin
	/usr/src/bin/cat	-> /usr/obj/bin/cat

and so on. Then, when you cd /usr/src/bin/cat, you type `make cat'.
It looks, sees an obj directory in the current directory, and puts
all of the .o files and the final objects in /usr/obj/bin/cat. This
way you can compile a source tree directly from CD-ROM, without
having to copy it over to writable media first or set up a separate
filesystem to use as a union filesystem.

>  Oh, btw:  We're speaking of a 1000, maybe 2000 CDs.  The price will be
> somewhere around 22DM (that is about 14$US).  This is a price at a level
> where most people will think:  "Oh, nice price.  I get it, even if not
> worth the content, money's not really lost".

22DM is retail? Assuming standard discounts, I should think we'd
be able to retail it in Canada for $20-$25, which is quite reasonble
for a two-CD set.

Tell that darn Helmut fellow to go weaken the DM so we can afford
to buy more stuff from Germany. :-)

cjs

Curt Sampson    curt@portal.ca		Info at http://www.portal.ca/
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