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	Sun, 11 Oct 1998 22:10:58 +0200 (CEST)
From: Markus Illenseer <markus@core.de>
Message-Id: <199810112010.WAA18630@beaver.core.de>
Subject: Re: Export NetBSD CDs
In-Reply-To: <19981011210840.C286@skiff.babafou.eu.org> from Marc Baudoin at "Oct 11, 98 09:08:41 pm"
To: babafou@babafou.eu.org (Marc Baudoin)
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1998 22:10:57 +0200 (CEST)
Cc: netbsd-advocacy@netbsd.org
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> > a slight different idea about the installation process
> 
> What exactly?
 
 The Gateway! Vol. 3 is bootable for i386 with more recent BIOS using
El Torito filesystem. Also, it is bootable for Amiga, because there
is a life-filesystem on the CD.

 I will probably stop adding a life filesystem for Amiga, but instead
replace it for i386 - which is by far the most common platform.

> >  Schatztruhe GmbH in Germany is not a global player, but is able to 
> > market any CD-ROM world wide, if necessary. Resellers are welcome.
> 
> That would solve one problem.
 
 It does, doesnt it? :-)

[prices and examples]
> Anyway, that gives us some ideas about prices.

 I can elaborate if required.

> One approach would be to have, say 2 CDs with basic install stuff
> for all platforms (all tarballs, including X but no packages,
> that's something like 54 Mb for i386), source code (43 Mb for the
> tarballs) and maybe the ports thing (which shouldn't use much
> space, as it's only patches).

 The basic stuff, ie. the entire NetBSD binary distribution including
X and sources, fits on one CD. Sources packed. It does not make any
sense to unpack the sources - there a so many files, and many of them
smaller than 2048 bytes (a single block on a CD), that the CD would not 
be able to hold them. (Yes, there is a limit in the amount of the 
files, restricted to the file allocation table)

 This makes - under NetBSD 1.3.2 - about 500MB, with 100 to 150 MB
to fill - with what?

> Then maybe some other CD sets, one set for each of the most used
> platforms' packages (or more than one platform on one CD, I've no
> idea about the size of the package stuff as I still compile my
> applications myself).

 Packages are upto 1GB now, depending the platform. You need up to 
6GB to hold entire sources, object files, binaries and distfiles - for 
one platform that is. With optimization during compilation ("make clean")
it will fit on 3GB. The distfiles (binary distribution) take about 300
up to 400MB per platform. Makes two platforms per CD at max.

 Who is willing to risc a CD for each platform? That makes a total of
20 CD currently. My guess is, that a VAX, PMAX or even PowerPC CD is
not a good seller.

 See my dilemma? I need DVD quickly! :-) Would even be easier to re-
distribute all that on DAT tapes.

> I've no way to know.  Does somebody have figures about relative
> importance of various NetBSD ports?  Maybe some statistics from
> the FTP servers?

 This could be a good start. I havent thought on that yet :-)
I am willing to create a Web-based questionary though, and assemble 
statistics.

> What I don't understand is why you changed the install process.
> It was useful for NetBSD <= 1.2 but it shouldn't be necessary for
> 1.3 and above.

 I didnt changed a single bit in the installation programs. 

 On Amiga this "no-changes" made the CD useless for installation when 
booting from CD (because the installation program wants to mount the CD, 
but the CD is mounted as / already ...). It works perfectly for i386.

-- 
Markus Illenseer
NetBSD 1.3.2 CD-ROM "Gateway! Vol. 3" now shipping!  See:  http://core.de/