Re: ISO Space Saving Ideas

["Teran McKinney" <sega01@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hey,

Thanks for the response. The kernel image would not be 4MB with all of the storage drivers. The latest ZS kernel (yes, I gave up on the initrd setup) contains all drivers needed to get to the hard drive - stable, and experimental (none very experimental or insane). I decided to remove ext3 from the main kernel because it makes it larger and is not nearly as good as reiserfs or xfs - but this is certainly debatable. The vmlinuz is 2228KB, and will soon be smaller because I will remove all CD support. I need a separate kernel for the installer anyways since some of the security options in the main kernel conflict with the installer :-). It is about 512KB larger, but this would make it more maintainable and somewhat easier to install. IMHO: A 512KB difference is very small, even when uncompressed in today's excess of ram.

Thanks,
Teran (sega01)

On 5/10/07, Jean-Philippe Guillemin <jp.guillemin@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Sebastian Reisse wrote:
> Hi
>
> nice idea Teran. Basically I agree in all of the points but 2 and 3!
> Don't touch the kernel configuration since it already has only a view options enabled and every time needs to be recompiled because of the lack of some features. I afraid, if you strip down more, it may refuse to install on some boxes, or at least gives you some spleepless nights until you figure out which missing kernel option triggered the problem you may have with some of your hardware, especially onboard sound will be critically.
>
>
>
>> Not enough space on the ISO seems to be a big issue lately. I have some
>> ideas to free up a little bit of space.
>>
>> 1: Split nmap package into nmap and nmapfe. I think that if most users
>> need
>> to use nmap they will know how to use the command line version of it, but
>> we
>>
Not a big save of space ...

>> could keep nmapfe seprate in extra/ just in case.
>> 2: Make one single kernel. Instead of having a SATA and SCSI kernel on the
>> ISO we could combine them both into one with all storage device drivers
>> needed to mount /.

We'll be getting a 4MB kernel image like the Debian one...

>> And AFAIK: the kernel package only contains a sata
>> kernel
>> right? The main kernel could also have ext3 modular along with a few other
>> unnecessary built in options.
So if the user select ext3 for / he won't reboot...

filesystem drivers are not things to build as modules (unless a lot of
Linux users, including Pat won't agree, that's my opinion)

>> I think that this would also help for more
>> reliable kernel updates for SCSI users (since they are not builtin in the
>> main kernel package?).
>> 3: Remove all modules from the installer. This would allow for a smaller
>> initrd, and you should not need any external drivers for installing
>> anyways.
>>

In most cases modules are not needed in the installer, in some cases
they are needed , ie to mount an USB storage device, or other things of
the kind. It's right that I could remove a lot of modules safely anyway,
I will do it for next ISO.

>> If you could only install because certain modules existed on the
>> installer,
>> the install would be broken anyways. Once the user booted up, the kernel
>> would not be able to not mount /. Also, if "Green Pill" is implemented, I
>> think it would be best in extra/ (instead of using the initrd on the
>> installer if that was already planned).
>> 4: Move Bluefish, GHex, fbpanel, and xterm to extra/. IMO: I do not think
>> that a general desktop distribution needs two terminals,
Correct, let's move it to extra
>> two panels,
Correct, let's move it to extra
>> a web development application,
Zenwalk was initially targeted for developpers

>> and a hex editor
Ghex is small yet useful

>> all standard on the iso.
>> 5: Use LZMA? ;-)
>>
I want to keep using standard and simple systems as well as follow
Slackware philosophy... maybe we'll do this in the future, not yet

>> Most of these are certainly debatable, but let me know what you think.
>>

Done :)

>> Thanks,
>> Teran (sega01)
>>

Thanks a lot for taking time to write down your ideas